The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8

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Een schrijver ziet meer : Nederlandse auteurs en het Rijksmuseum, Greetje Heemskerk, Kader Abdolah, p. 82-83 Meanwhile in dramas with contemporary settings, the ground-breaking series of the 1980s meant it was no longer unusual to imagine a female police officer leading an investigation, and programmes such as the “Scandi Noir” series The Killing and The Bridge have featured strong but flawed women officers (both male and female lead characters in modern crime dramas are always flawed…) Ruth is a terrific character: unglamorous, smart, down-to-earth and completely believable.” — San Jose Mercury News

As always, the characters are more important than the murder mystery itself. We get a few revelations in this story, both happy and sad.

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VALENTINA VALENTINI: How did you end up filming the Minneapolis Police Department, of all the departments in America? The story is set in a medieval town known as England's Nazareth, a place known for religious phenomena. Cathbad, a druid friend of Ruth Galloway (the "star" of the series), notices a woman in a blue cloak in a cemetery at night and believes her to be the Virgin Mary. But when a woman wearing a blue cloak is found murdered the next day, there doesn't appear to be any connection to religion. Then, one of Ruth's friends who's an Anglican priest starts getting threatening letters - women simply shouldn't be priests, the writer asserts - and not long thereafter, another female priest is murdered.

This is book #8 in the Ruth Galloway series and life in and near Norfolk continues. In the beginning of this novel, Cathbad is house-sitting and cat-sitting at a friend'a cottage in Walsingham. Cathbad is chasing after the cat as it manages to slip out an open window, when Cathbad notices a beautiful young woman in blue in the graveyard next to the cottage. Who is she and what is she doing out late at night or is this one of Cathbad's visions and the woman is a sighting of the Virgin Mary which Walsingham is known for with its religious pilgrims. Vermeer and his milieu : a web of social history, John Michael Montias, p. 162, 189-190, 192, 259, 266, afb. 29But, still I'm going to look forward to reading the next book in this series. I love the mix of crime and archeology. And, now when I think about is it probably what made this book less interesting to read. Too little archeology involved in the story. Liedtke, Walter A. (2001). Vermeer and the Delft School. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-87099-973-4. As a reader with an extremely basic understanding of the different factions within the Church of England I am continually impressed by how accessible Elly Griffith’s makes this minefield for those not indoctrinated. Whilst her narrative never reads as an information dump, Griffith’s feeds her readers the critical elements of religious, spiritual and archaeological detail and ensures her audience feel well-informed and up to speed. In this sense, as an atheist, Dr Ruth Galloway is a wonderfully impartial observer and as the lead character she projects both sides of an argument and manages to gets to the root of some of the most contentious arguments from an objective standpoint. Schneider, Norbert (17 May 2000). Vermeer, 1632-1675: veiled emotions. Taschen. p. 49. ISBN 978-3-8228-6323-7 . Retrieved 18 June 2010.

However, all the usual problems remain. Firstly, it's still written in third person present tense, and somehow it feels clunkier with every book. The ancient off-off non-love non-affair between Ruth and Nelson rumbles on, going nowhere as always. I spent a lot of time wondering what on earth either Ruth or Nelson's wife could see in this rather neanderthal, bad-tempered, somewhat obnoxious man – nope, it's a mystery! (In fact, Ruth herself is constantly objecting to his macho, hectoring style – what exactly is it about him that she's supposed to love?) I know some people like this aspect of the books, but I've been hoping that Ruth would move on for about five books now – she seems increasingly pathetic as time goes on, a middle-aged woman constantly hankering after someone else's husband. Not only has he pared down the details of the scene to a minimum, but he has gone so far as to have consciously removed the woman’s shadow. Look closely, and you can see that both the chair against the wall and the rod holding the map cast their own shadows. But by removing the woman’s shadow, Vermeer creates an effect of atemporality, as if our central figure is suspended in limitless time, forever enthralled in her reading.

Dutch Scenes of Domestic Interiors

Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,876 articles in the main category, and specifying |topic= will aid in categorization. Three and a half stars. While Cathbad, a friend of Ruth Galloway, is house-sitting in the Norfolk village of Walsingham, he sees a woman in white with a blue cloak in the graveyard. Since Wasingham is famous for pilgrimages and a fascination with the Virgin Mary, Cathbad, even though he is a druid, wonders if he has seen the Madonna. That is, until next morning when a young blonde woman is found dead just outside Walsingham dressed in a white nightgown and blue dressing gown. DCI Harry Nelson and his team are called in to investigate the murder. Ruth Galloway is brought into the situation when an old university friend Hilary who is now an Anglican priest, has been receiving anonymous and vengeful letters because of her role as a woman priest. Could the murder and the letters be linked? Then another woman, who is also an Anglican priest is murdered. Can Nelson with a little help from his team and also Ruth, find the culprit before the murderer kills again?