The Woman In Blue (Ruth Galloway 8)

Author/Guide: Elly Griffiths

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: The murder of women priests in the shrine town of Walsingham sucks Dr Ruth Galloway into an unholy investigation.

ISBN: 978-1784292379
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

Walsingham is a shrine village – it has strong connections to the Virgin Mary and so when someone sees a vision of a woman in some sort of white and blue cloak, he doesn’t pay much attention to it. He’s a druid after all and so visions come with the job.However when the body of a woman is later found in a ditch, and she’s wearing a blue dressing gown, it’s clear that this was no vision.

DCI Nelson and the team are called in to investigate. But Walsingham has more secrets to share – a female priest has been receiving hate mail and the letters have contained references to local archaeology and a striking phrase about a woman ‘clad in blue, weeping for the world’.

Walsingham is in the middle of preparations for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, but there’s something very unsettling about what could happen next.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Walsingham is a shrine village well known in Norfolk and England and is often referred to as ‘England’s Nazareth’. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.

A young woman from a private hospital, one of those that is for recovery of addiction, is found murdered in Walsingham, she was wearing just her nightgown and her blue dressing gown, in fact Cathbad had seen her earlier that night mistaking her for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The theme of the Madonna, religion and references to pilgrimages run through this book and it’s the location of a conference for woman clergy. The subsequent investigation takes Ruth and colleagues into the lives of those past and present and deep into the religious heart of a city, with the struggles of women working in the clergy and the city as a whole.

Since the main action of the book is set at Easter, there is a lot of scope for visiting and getting involved with the events – even Ruth who is an atheist attends events and buys the odd souvenir.

Walsingham has a lot of secrets to hide….

Streetview Maps

2) National Shrine of Our Lady

1) The Shrine Our Lady of Walsingham

Booktrailer Review

Clare @thebooktrailer

I can’t believe Ruth, Nelson, Tim, Clough and Cathbad are on their eighth novel already as each book is fresh and exciting. Elly Griffiths needs to be on your booktrail list!

First of all, I wouldn’t let the religious site put you off as this enhances the whole mystery of the novel and is never overly done. It’s the setting of the novel and the whole idea behind the crimes that is good but it does make you think about things. It did me and I am not religious in the slightest. I learned so much about Walsingham and its heritage and to have a modern day crime novel set there was just perfect and very exciting for me.

I do think the books should be read in order purely as it helps build a picture of past and present. I’m not going to comment on the denouement – I didn’t get who did it and I’m always questioning the why. The religious angle put a real interesting spin on things as I am not familiar with the themes in the book. I just wanted to spend more time with Ruth and the others and the name Elly Griffiths on the cover always makes me buy the book.