2018/59: The Chalk Pit -- Elly Griffiths

The homeless are like the remnants of a long-forgotten army, still dressed in their ragged uniforms, reminding their more fortunate neighbours that there is a battlefield out there, a place of violence and fear and dread. [loc. 1067]

Ninth in the Dr Ruth Galloway series, following The Woman in Blue. As before, this is as much an episode in the wider arc about Ruth, Harry Nelson, and their friends and families, as it's a standalone crime novel: I would not recommend anyone to start here.

During excavations for an exciting new subterranean restaurant in Norwich, human bones -- bearing possible indications of cannibalism -- have been found in the tunnels below the city. Ruth Galloway is called in to help identify them, and discovers that they are not medieval but recent. Could this be linked with several disappearances over recent years, especially amongst the homeless of Norwich? Naturally, police investigations intensify when an upstanding middle-class mother of four disappears ...

I do like Ruth in this. She manages to carry on doing the job (and solving the case) despite some truly horrific life events, while Harry Nelson is lying by omission, being typically paranoid, and dealing with a frightful new (female) boss. Harry is starting to annoy me a lot.

A good read, a twisty mystery, and a novel that makes me want to revisit Norwich. (Hmm, given another recent Norfolk read, maybe my subconscious has been waiting for me to get the hint?)