This is my fifth book in the series, and my least favorite. A beloved character's fate from the virus. I feel The Locked Room lack in the mystery department, especially 'old bones' which is the fascinating area that I like most. But this isn't the main story and didn't go anywhere. Lockdown and staying at home complicate matters for DCI Harry Nelson who is investigating a suspicious suicide and a connection if there's one to other suicides. Ruth finds herself adjusting to remote teaching, complications for international students who have nowhere to go, the lack of PPE for healthcare workers, patients dying alone when visits are prohibited, and supermarkets with empty shelves.

The further Nelson investigates these deaths, the closer they lead him to Ruth's friendly neighbor-until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it's too late.Īre you ready to relive the start of the Covid19 pandemic?😷😏įebruary 2020, The Locked Room addressed the deadly flu that originated in China. But when Nelson breaks quarantine to rush to Ruth's cottage and enlist her help in investigating a series of murder-suicides he has connected to an archeological discovery, he finds Zoe is hardly who she says she is. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance. Ruth returns to the cottage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk's first cases of COVID-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. Three years after her late mother's death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of Jean's Norfolk cottage with a peculiar inscription. Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor-until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that's looming ever closer.

The ghost fields by elly griffiths