A collection of crime

I enjoy all of Elly Griffiths’ crime novels. She has a series about an archaeologist (see my review here), another about the magic and entertainment industries post WW2 (see here) and is now writing some books with a new main protagonist and the people who help her with her cases (see here and here). Her latest book The Man in Black is a series of short stories, many of which include the characters in her longer books. This means that this book is really one for fans who will be delighted to revisit people who they already know and love and it may not be the best choice if you have not previously read her books.

The big selling point of this book is a new story telling us what happens to Ruth and Nelson after the last book in her Ruth Galloway series (see here for my review of that book) which doesn’t disappoint and Ruth appears in a couple of other stories too. There’s a Max Mephisto story and Harbinger appears in a number of stories. There are even occasions when she mixes characters from different series.

The non-series stories in the book are also good and several have a ghostly feel to them. One story is even told from the point of view of a cat. Some of these are a bit insubstantial but I enjoyed them all anyway.

The stories in this book are not particularly long and so the author has managed to include a large number in the book which I liked. Most of them are feel good stories, even allowing for the fact that they usually include a crime, which makes this collection a pleasure to read, especially for those who already know this author’s work.