This Griffiths was also a pageturner as always.
Even though Ruth Galloway is not in demand as an archaeologist this time, she can't stop investigating, even if she finds it hard to hold back.
Cathbad looks after a friend's house in the pilgrimage town of Walsingham. In the middle of the night, he sees a young woman dressed in a blue cloak in the graveyard. Shortly afterwards she is found dead in a ditch. She was a patient in a nearby private rehab clinic. Who has a reason to kill the young woman and why? At the same time, a former fellow student of Ruth's gets in touch with her. She has been receiving threatening letters for some time because she is now a priestess. In Walsingham, she takes part in a seminar for prospective female bishops. Soon afterwards, a member of this group is also found murdered and DCI Nelson's wife, who looks strikingly similar to the two dead women, is also attacked.
Events come thick and fast, both privately and in the investigation. ( )

Book #8 in Elly Griffiths’ Dr. Ruth Galloway Mystery series is entitled The Woman in Blue.
“A vision of the Virgen Mary foreshadows a string of cold-blooded murders, revealing a dark current of religious fanaticism in the ancient medieval town of Walsingham.”
Ever-evolving characters - interesting plots - compelling locations - all come together in this fantastic series featuring Dr. Ruth Galloway. ***** ( )

Not one of my favorites in the series mostly because it seems to be back to the negative obsession with Ruth's weight, and her self-loathing about it. I hadn't noticed that as much over the preceding few in the series. As always, I loved Cathbad who had a beautiful open heart that is the moral center of the books. I liked the religious exploration and how we came to know the spiritual history of many of the major characters. ( )

The eighth Ruth Galloway mystery centers around Walsingham which is the center of an area devoted to Mary, the Mother of God. When Cathbad, who is catsitting in the area, sees a young woman with a blue robe in the graveyard next to his house, his first thought is that he's had a vision of the Virgin Mary.

However, when the same woman is found dead in a ditch, it becomes clear that there is a murderer on the loose. The young woman is Chloe Jenkins, a fashion model who was at a local drug treatment center. Nelson and his team are determined to find out who murdered her.

Ruth gets involved mainly because an old friend who is now an Anglican priest calls her to come look at some troubling letters she has received. Hilary is there for a seminar with other female Anglican priests who are looking to become bishops once that is allowed.

When another of the priests is also murdered in the same way as Chloe, Ruth finds herself more involved in the case despite Nelson's wanting her to back off and let him handle the police work. Nelson and Ruth's relationship had come to some sort of equilibrium until his wife Michelle's relationship with Nelson's colleague Tim comes to light.

Nelson and Michelle are at odds until the villain attacks her in a Walsingham churchyard. They decide to try to rebuild their marriage. Tim transfers to another area but doesn't leave until he tells Michelle that he's still in love with her and will always be there for her.

Ruth is left out in this new version of Nelson and Michelle's marriage and is trying to convince herself that she is okay with that. She knows that Nelson and her daughter Kate will always have a relationship and she will have to deal with that.

This was another engaging mystery in the long-running Ruth Galloway series that seems to spend as much time talking about relationships as it does solving crimes. The crime does get solved but the relationships are unresolved. ( )

Slightly disappointing. Little of the archaeology that normally features in all the books and many of the characters quite unappealing. A different book to the others in the series. ( )