The Crossing Places

Book excerpt: When a child’s bones are found near an ancient henge in the wild saltmarshes of Norfolk’s north coast, Ruth Galloway, a university lecturer in forensic archaeology, is asked to date them by DCI Harry Nelson. He thinks they may be the bones of a child called Lucy who has been missing for ten years. It’s a cold case he has never been able to forget, in part because he’s received creepy letters about Lucy—quoting Shakespeare and the Bible, in addition to referencing ritual and sacrifice—ever since her disappearance. When Ruth proves that the bones are those of an Iron Age girl who died over two thousand years ago, she supposes that this is the end of the story. She’s wrong: it’s just the beginning of a nightmare. The Crossing Places is a gripping story about how the past, even the distant past, can have a deadly hold on the present. It marks the beginning of a stunning new mystery series, and the debut of an intelligent, salty-tongued sleuth who is all the more likeable for being vulnerable in ways she’s the last to recognize.