[Review] Elly Griffiths: 'The Janus Stone'

When a child’s remains – minus the head – are found as builders demolish an old children’s home, Dr Ruth Galloway is called in to help investigate the skeleton. Was it an accident, a murder or (worse) a sacrifice? DI Harry Nelson (Ruth’s married friend and father of her unborn child) interrogates some of the people who ran the home, and he discovers the story of a young boy and girl who vanished from the home, never to be seen again.

The case becomes more complicated when carbon dating shows that the bones predate the disappearance by more than ten years, even before the building was a children’s home. But the investigations have clearly disturbed the past, and someone seems determined to stop Ruth and Nelson’s investigation by any means necessary.

This was a holiday read. A book found in the hotel library (two shelves), and it wasn't an altogether happy encounter. An interesting little mystery, but one severely lacking in execution.

First, Elly Griffiths somehow decided that she would write in the present tense, which made the text sterile ('Ruth is scared'). Several other reviewers were also irked by that style of writing. You wonder why Griffiths' proofreaders or editors weren't able to convince here to change the text to the past tense.

The main character, Ruth Galloway, is a forensic archaeologist which means that she is called in by the police to determine the age of human remains. It is therefore strange that a possible killer wants her to stop the investigation. Ruth doesn't investigate the killing, because that's the prerogative of the police. But the police seems an inept bunch of amateurs. When artefacts from a museum are cropping up to scare Ruth, the only course of action was to check who has access to the museum. No mention of key cards to gain entry or CCTV to check who enters.

And still Ruth wanders alone to lonely places.

And someone carries a carpet with a body rolled into it. The packet was so heavy that help of an innocent bystander was needed to carry it aboard. I never read something so utterly stupid in my life.

The entire story reeked of being written by someone who hasn't a clue how people react to stressors in the real world.

The Janus Stone is not recommended.