A Room Full Of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Mystery (Ruth Galloway series Book 4)

I love the characters, the story lines and the location.Will miss Ruth and the others!!!

Ruth Galloway, Cathbad and Inspector Nelson are all back in another adventure of death and archeology. A construction crew has uncovered the coffin of a Catholic Bishop who appears to have been buried in the wrong place. To make things interesting the coffin and body are being delivered to the Smith family museum (relatives of the deceased Clergy) for them to have on display.They decide they would like to open the coffin and the press has been called in to watch. The opening of a several hundred years old coffin seems to invite mystery. Ruth Galloway is asked to be present at the opening to provide expertise in relationship to identifying the bones.But when Ruth shows up at the Museum about an hour early she finds the curator of the Museum lying on the floor next to the coffin dead. It doesn't appear to be murder, but the young curator is to young to die of a heart attack. Why did he die? Was it due to the curse of the coffin that the Bishop put on it? The curse was to not disturb the bones of the deceased or face certain death.Inspector Harry Nelson is called in along with Judy and Clough to investigate. The coffin gets opened and Lord Smith who is at the opening turns up dead several days later at his race horse ranch. Why did he die? Was it the curse?Not only that but inspector Nelson also gets sick and enters into a coma and is fighting for his life and the doctors can't find a cause. Cathbad to the rescue. He informs Ruth that is the curse and he plans to enter the "Dreaming" to find Nelson and bring him back.Oh, and to add to the mystery the Museum is also holding the skeletal remains of Aborignal Natives from Australia. This has brought about a group trying to get the museum to return the remains so that they can be laid to rest in their homeland and able to find peace. Bob Woonunga has moved in next to Ruth and he is a Shaman from Australia who has come to seek the return of the bones. Cathbad thinks he may have put the curse on the museum curator, inspector Nelson and Lord Smith. Who knows.The book has several plots running at once. There is also a drug operation that the police are trying to break up. Does it tie in, well of course it does, otherwise it wouldn't be mentioned so often.All in all the book is a bit slower than the other reads. It was not as exciting as the others in the series. But it does a great job of developing Ruth's character and that of her little girl Kate. It further develops the relationship between Ruth and Harry and the problems that rise up with Harry's wife.The book is good, just not as fascinating as the first books in the series. I hope the next one is a bit more filled with archeology than just a study of the bones in a museum.Enjoy!

The book was in great condition, well-packaged and arrived very quickly.

This is a particularly fun offering in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series. Ruth starts out under a kind of curse herself, because the secret is out about the father of her child. Chief Inspector Nelson's wife Michelle has guessed at little Kate's parentage and has forbidden Nelson to see either Ruth or Kate. So Ruth is sad, Nelson is sad, and Michelle is miserable. Only little Kate, at one year old, is blissfully unaware of any complications.Meanwhile some significant people die in sudden and shocking ways. The young curator of a rich man's local museum drops dead next to an historic coffin he's about to open. And Lord Danford Smith, racehorse trainer-breeder and current owner of the museum, dies horribly in the grip of hallucinations about a vengeful snake.Was this the snake that was threatened to attack anyone who opened Smith's ancestor's coffin? Or was it an Aboriginal spirit snake? Aboriginals were trying to get Lord Smith to return the skulls of their ancestors that are stored in a room full of bones in the Smith museum. Was Lord Smith the victim of an Aboriginal curse?Ruth is not partnering with Nelson in these investigations the way she has in the past, but there are still plenty of overlapping dramas involving the two of them. For one thing, Ruth has acquired an Aboriginal neighbor out on the Saltmarsh who is after the skulls. Who know how dangerous he may be? And Cuthbad, Ruth's and Nelson's Druid friend, gets involved in some wild rituals touching them both.The plot is full of surprises. What we see going on is mysterious enough. But there's even more going on beneath appearances... And most fun of all, behind all the mystification and mysticism, there are logical explanations for just about everything.This one is a winner.

Dr. Ruth Galloway, head of the University of North Norwich’s forensic anthropology program arrives a bit early to the Smith Museum and opening of the coffin of Bishop Augustine, who, it seems is not buried in the cathedral but in a somewhat lesser church of Mary-Outside-the-Walls. When she arrives there’s no sign of the reception she expected, but there IS a body....the curate of museum lies dead beside the coffin.All kinds of things going on here - racehorses, ancient Aboriginal rituals (and their remains), a separate drug investigation, Max Gray is back is Ruth’s life and, the worst, DCI Harry Nelson is very ill and doctors can’t pinpoint what’s wrong or whether he can survive.The many different thread make this an enjoyable book for the reader and I enjoy seeing the loves of our main characters (Galloway, Nelson, Cathbad, Judy, Shona and Phil) move along. In addition, I’ve always loved the quote, “All will be well, all will be well and all manner in things shall be well,” and learning about it’s origin was especially interesting to me. Thank you, Mother Julian! Quarantine read and currently available on Kindle Unlimited.

Very interesting and unusual story and gripping. The usual characters are developing nicely and I’m curious to read more about them.

I am enjoying this new series of murder/mystery. The main characters have a bit more depth than a lot of books I have read. And neither are too filled with "angst" as the dysfunctional characters in other series!

Ich habe die ersten drei Ruth-Galloway-Bände mit viel Vergnügen gelesen. Zwar finde ich die Kriminalfälle und ihre Auflösung ein bisschen simpel und nicht gelungen, dafür gefallen mir die Beschreibung der Menschen und ihrer Beziehungen zueinander und auch die Naturbeschreibungen (z.b. Ruths Liebe zur einsamen saltmarsh) umso besser. Ausnahmsweise hat mir aber dieser vierte Band nicht gefallen. Ich fand ihn langatmig, weitschweifig und schließlich so langweilig, dass ich ihn nur mit Mühe zu Ende gelesen habe. Der fünfte (ich hatte ihn schon bestellt) ist hoffentlich wieder so gut wie die ersten drei!

Als Ruth an der Öffnung des wiederaufgefundenen Sarges von Bischof Augustin teilnehmen will, stößt sie plötzlich auf die Leiche des Museumskurators.Der Teil ist spannend und mystisch angehaucht. Eine gute Unterhaltung.