Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Crossing Places

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

21 reviews

cosyreads's review against another edition

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informative lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

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sandysmith's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

A solid series opener in the Dr Ruth Galloway series. I'm going to read more, I'm sure. She is a forensic archaeologist and is called in by DI Harry Nelson when bones are found amongst the salt marshes of Norfolk. The TV Series bones is probably based on these books to give a rough idea of the context. The bones that are found are from the iron age, which is sad for Harry as he wants closure on a case of a missing child Lucy from 10 years before. Another child goes missing. Letters are received by Harry through his investigation. Ruth becomes involved in the analysis of the letters, and another body is found. What I really disliked about the book was the fat phobia, and she isn't really fat. It was annoying at best, plus the killing of the cat was unnecessary. What I loved about the book were the descriptions of the salt marshes with them becoming a character in the book in it's own right. Overall, it was a really good crime based book, well written, good plot line, engaging with great characters (including the marshes), atmospheric, and a great read. I'm looking forward to the next adventures of Ruth and Harry

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swamp_rat's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Disclaimer/TLDR: the way I give star ratings means that three stars is your average well put together story, in my rating system this book is not bad and i would in fact recommend and loan this book to someone seeking a decent mystery novel.
Actual review: The atmosphere the author achieves in this book is really well done, some parts read as above average in their striking imagery or emotion or beauty, but i feel the rest of the story lacks the refinement of some of the prose. i had a good time while reading and the mystery was intriguing but looking back after the bad guy is revealed left me disappointed (more on this later).
The main character’s constant whining about being overweight (she really isn’t) and being a spinster while only being in her late thirties, was so uncomfortable and irrelevant to the story.

The people writing the letters being separate from the person actually doing the kidnapping and murder was what really brought the mystery down for me. The killer (the real mystery in the murder mystery book) falls entirely flat after the personal betrayal of the letter writers. (It’s also unclear to me why of the many cases Nelson likely was involved in, they would get involved in the child abduction case? For Erik’s characterization it makes sense but around the time they started, Shona had maternal desire, and Cathbad had a daughter of his own (i also wish that Cathbad and his relation to Scarlet was explored as anything other than a twist.). ) While I did feel David was endearing, i feel like that worked against the emotion of the ending. His sudden shift from slightly grumpy but nice neighbor, to cartoon villain, detached from humanity feels odd, as if the author just wanted to get one more twist in. (Also David killing Sparky because he doesn’t like cats and yet explicitly taking good care of Flint, is one example of this shift.)

I have much more to say so I will continue this review later.

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bethr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The first in this series about a forensic archaeologist who helps solve crimes. I’m not sure where the series will go from here, but the main character is flawed and complex enough that I am already planning to return the next in the series.

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singalana's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Risteyskohdat on sekavasta juonestaan ja kissanomistajia pöyristyttävistä juonenkäänteistään ihan mukiinmenevä thrilleri.

Risteyskohdat kertoo Ruth Gallowaysta, arkeologista, joka kutsutaan tutkimaan poliisin löytämiä luita. Etsivä Harry Nelson toivoo, että luut kuuluisivat kymmenen vuotta sitten kadonneelle tytölle, että tytön vanhemmat saisivat vihdoinkin vastauksia, mitä heidän kadonneelle lapselleen tapahtui.

Ruth Galloway on lähes neljäkympinen arkeologi, joka asuu yksin marskimaan laidalla. Hän soimaa itseään ylipainosta. Harry Nelson on etsivä jolla on kaunis vaimo ja kaksi tytärtä. Hahmot ovat suhteellisen hyvin toteutettuja, vaikka heissä omat vikansa onkin. Tarinakin on suhteellisen mielenkiintoinen, vaikka alkupuolella tuntuukin etenevän vähän hitaasti. Huomasin arvanneeni syyllisen melko alkupuolella, joten mitään kovin uutta kirja ei tältä osin tarjonnut.

Spoilereita!

Vaikka Ruthin itseään ylipainosta soimaaminen onkin hieman ärsyttävää, enemmän minua häiritsi hänen tapansa kissanomistajana: kissat ovat vapaana linnunsuojelualueen laitamilla. Lisäksi kirjan tapahtumat huomioon ottaen, Ruth ei vaikuta ottavan kissojensa turvallisuutta kovin vakavasti.

Sitten päästään itse juoneen. Mielestäni ei ollut kovin loogista, että kirjeiden lähettäjä ja lasten katoamisesta vastuussa oleva olivat eri henkilöitä. Lisäksi en pidä siitä tavasta, miten lopussa syyllisille kävi köpelösti, ja miten sekaisin tekijät lopulta olivat. Se tuntui kummalliselta.
Oma lukunsa on tietysti Ruthin ja Nelsonin tekoset, ja varsinkin lopun paljastus… En usko, että jatkan enää tätä sarjaa, vaikka kirja ihan suhteellisen viihdyttävä olikin.

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asha1725's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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lillianfc's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

A fast paced and interesting anthropological crime novel — yet outdated in its consistent fatphobia and anti-childless women stances

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strawbkatie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

a really decent murder mystery that combines archaeology and mythology, i like this niche! i would definitely read more ruth galloway mysteries :) but i do wish that the author would’ve shut up a bit about ruth being a fat lady in her 30s who owns cats… fat ladies can have other personalities than cat lady who likes bones you know madam
also

was there any need for her to say that she quite likes nelson’s wife at the end, and then just casually drop in that she’s pregnant with his kid? i think not!

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ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

TITLE—The Crossing Places

AUTHOR—Elly Griffiths

PUBLISHED—2009

PUBLISHER—Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

GENRE—mystery crime thriller

SETTING—Norfolk, England

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—archaeology, New Age stuff, ancient henge sites, ley lines, birding, salt marsh, boundaries & liminal places, human sacrifice & ritual burials, bog bodies, horrible human relationship dynamics, cats, university jobs, child abduction & murder, modern English society & culture (though a bit dated even for 2009 imo…)

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️

PHILOSOPHY—🚩🚩🚩

My thoughts:

Oh gods this book was a mess. Though I’m not too familiar with the genre (crime/mystery/thriller), I thought the plot seemed way too cliché and predictable (I’m terrible at guessing whodunnits and this one I guessed *immediately*), the characters’ actions made zero sense to the point that it was disorienting, and the underlying philosophy was awful.

—👇🏻HERE BE SPOILERS👇🏻—

This book presented New Agers as mad kooks, and born again Christians as fanatical (but at least nOt As BaD as New Agers 😬). The (“fat”, single-with-two-cats, living-in-an-isolated-cottage) MC—who referred to her body at one point as “a waste” because she had never had children—was “redeemed” at the end by becoming pregnant by the married man she slept with halfway through the book. 🥴 Her odd obsession with her toxic, abusive, cheating mentor was extremely lazily justified at the end because pEoPlE aRe CoMpLiCaTeD and nO bOdY iS pErFeCt even though the dude literally died while chasing her out into the marsh during a storm and the MC was convinced he was the killer at one point. One of the characters got back together with his wife even though he was neither happy nor in love with her and it was *uncritically* presented as the right thing to do. And the person who ended up being the killer was neurodivergent and basically presented as having done what he did due to mental instability. Yeah. This book was a WHOLE mess.

I read this book as part of #ArchaeoBookclub and the archaeology in the book was, though somewhat accurately depicted (i.e. the author clearly did her research), disappointingly applied fixating on death rituals (which is an over-sensationalized part of archaeological scholarship) and, even worse, human sacrifice (a highly controversial and debatable interpretation of some ancient burials). It just came off as very lazy and many times the things the author did get wrong (how artifacts were often incorrectly excavated & recorded, the fact that the use of honeysuckle rope in one of the modern burials wasn’t an immediate indicator of who the killer was, and the archaeologist musing about the monetary value of one of the artifacts as her first thought upon uncovering it) too often took me out of the story.

—🛑END OF SPOILERS🛑—

I would not recommend this book.

Final note: Still glad I read it though (and that I was able to get it from the library) just so I know what’s out there. 👀 And I also want to emphasize that I firmly believe that just because a book is a piece of “genre fiction” or is meant as “just” escapism and entertainment, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to uncritically feature highly problematic ideas and beliefs.

⭐️

(This proves at least that I don’t only give books four and five star ratings. 😆 Fwiw I will only really post one or two star reviews if I feel like the book was problematic on some level and needs to be addressed.)

Season: Winter

CW // fatphobia, animal death (cat), child abduction & murder, infidelity, misogyny, toxic relationships, ableism (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

LAST RITUALS by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir—this was another book from this genre that I read because of its connections to archaeology and certain historical subjects that I’m interested in and that was similarly disappointing in its handling of those topics, though maybe not as much as Griffiths’ book.

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leneliest's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

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