The House at Sea’s End (Ruth Galloway 3)

Author/Guide: Elly Griffiths

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A North Norfolk beach and a find of six bodies…

ISBN: 978-1849163651
Genre: Crime, Mystery

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What you need to know before your trail

A team of archaeologists are investigating coastal erosion on the north Norfolk coast, when they unearth six bodies buried at the foot of a cliff. They call in Dr Ruth Galloway to look into the find and to find out how they got there and how long they’ve been there.

Tests reveal that the bodies have lain, preserved in the sand, for sixty years. The mystery of their deaths stretches back to the Second World War, a time when Great Britain was threatened by invasion.

But someone wants the truth to stay buried, and will go to any lengths to keep it that way… even to committing murder.

Locations

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Travel Guide

The Norfolk Coast is a wild and desolate place as seen through the eyes of Dr Ruth Galloway. This is her territory and where she loves as she lives in a cottage, a tiny cottage, remote, alone and unique a bit like Ruth herself.

The Saltmarshes

Ruth lives and works in and around the Salt Marshes which are fictional but the author suggests visiting nearby RSPB Titchwell Marsh in King’s Lynn

North Norfolk

North Norfolk has many stunning beaches – each as wild and wonderful as the Saltmarsh. Hunstanton is one. The area of Sea End and Broughton road are fictional but the opening scenes as it were evoke the coast and Happisburgh lighthouse

The overall literary travel experience here is one of landscape and a sense of wide space. The marshes and the outlying fields are wild and raw. The weather harsh and unforgiving, the waves pounding against the jagged cliffs, washing into the coves, the shrieks of the birds overhead.

WW2

Further investigation into the bodies leads to something called Project Lucifer, a 1940s initiative to halt Germany. Members of the Home Guard it would seem have taken blood oaths to keep some dangerous wartime secrets from ever coming to light. When a German reporter in the area is murdered, there is a further link to the Norfolk present and the German past being very closely linked.