3.5 stars. Another good book in this series, but I can't say it was my favorite one. This one felt more about relationships than archeology and police investigation. And the mystery and conclusion of it was kind of lackluster. I did enjoy the read though. I love the characters.

The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths. I read and reviewed this book in the Spring. This is the second review I've written
that seems not to have reached its destination.
I have only read the first in her Ruth D series and this one, a lot has happened and I realized that they probably should be read in order. I didn't like this one as much as her first.
I hope you find my original review.
Sara Somers

This series just keeps getting better and better! I loved the change of locale, but I hope the next one is set back in Ruth's stomping grounds.

Review on Goodreads and Amazon due to time.

3 Stars

Elly Griffiths is in my top 3 favorite British mystery writers. I know my life is INSANE when I get behind on this series as I eagerly look out for new releases for it. It is a smart, entertaining and engrossing series that even after a dozen releases just doesn't get old. This is also my number one recommended British mystery series.

On that note, this book left me cold. While the core components were there, there was more llama drama between the two main characters that really drew down the story line for me. I almost felt I was watching a soap opera. Ms. Griffiths has always written these characters before where it was simply a part of the story. This time, it felt as though it was a take over. Had I not been moving on in this series and it is HEAVILY character driven, I might have shelved it. This is a first for this author as normally, I am scoping out when her next book is out.

Now that aside, is she still one of my top rated British, actually global, authors? HELL YES! This was still a quality read from the mystery component. Now I need to continue to catch up.

Reviewed for publisher via Netgalley.

I'm hooked. I haven't read Griffiths before and find that I have been missing out with the Rith Galloway series.I will definitely be going back to catch up on this archeologist and her relationship with the police.

Copy provided by Netgalley and publisher

Griffiths excels in her drama and characterization and this continues to somewhat take precedence over the mystery (though never overshadows). Italy feels very real in this novel-full of joys and also discomforts. I enjoy the Galloway series with their blend of soap opera, cozy mystery, and accurate archaeology. However, there's one small thing about each book that kind of annoys me but never enough to stop reading this series-in this case, the homesickness for the UK, while in Italy, just kept popping up.

In the beginning I was an avid fan of the Ruth Galloway mysteries and was looking forward to reading this one. However, it felt like it’s the same story with a new mystery and a new location. Firstly, the plot is weak with a flimsy mystery that was easy to figure out.
Worse are the characters:
Ruth is an educated woman who calls herself a feminist, who has an out of wedlock baby with a married man and then sits around mooning after him like a teenager.
Said married man, Nelson, is blatantly jealous that his wife Michelle, might be in love with someone else (Tim) and is suspicious about another character, Angelo, because he can't determine the relationship he has with Ruth. Hypocrite much!
The long suffering wife, Michelle, has put up with her husband’s infidelity and bringing his love child into their home but yet remains married to him while carrying on her affair with Tim, for whom she might now be pregnant.
This series has become a really bad soap opera and it's going to be tough to drag me back into the fold.

Of all of the heroes in the mystery canon, Ruth Galloway has always been my favorite. She's brave, whip-smart, an expert in a male-dominated field, and is also real and allowed to have complicated emotions and flaws. I love spending time within the world Griffiths creates. Griffiths doesn't just give us an incredible heroine, but a wonderfully messy and human supporting cast of characters. She then sets these wonderfully human characters into situations where the reader finds themselves drawn into learning about history, science, and anthropology.

In this novel, we leave the salt marshes for the harsh sun of Italy, and find ourselves contending with WWII era grudges and relationship issues. This novel features a nice little twist at the end, one that leaves you desperate for the next entry in the series. If you appreciate mystery novels with a rich setting, a compelling mystery in the plot, that also honor the complexity of the human experience, deliver fantastic historical details, I can guarantee you'll tear through this novel.

The Dark Angel is the 10th novel in the Dr Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist, series of books. This time Ruth travels to the Liri Valley in Italy for a working holiday to look at some bones, meet up with an old friend, fellow archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli and to spend time with her daughter Kate. Ruth also takes along her friend Shona, plus her son Louis.

The Dark Angel is like meeting up with old friends. The characters from previous Ruth Galloway novels are carried forward. This novel gave me a familiar warmth as the old characters made their way into the story. It gave me the same feeling I get when I watch Gogglebox on Channel 4 television. Real people whose characters you get so in tune with, you can imagine they are your own friends and family.

The Dark Angel is similar to the other Ruth Galloway novels. It is a character led mystery and NOT a gritty crime thriller. Oh, there is a murder later on in this story but that just adds to the mystery!

I found The Dark Angel to be a lovely, warm, entertaining read. I really enjoyed reading this book and I was very comfortable with all the characters. Elly strongly develops all of her characters and her story is very engaging indeed. I developed a relationship with her characters as though I was the fly on the wall. The emotions generated by the story is similar to that excellent long running drama series on ITV television called Cold Feet.

I liked how Elly wove the issue of housing mobility into her story. Her characters made their point of view about what it is like to move away from your original home into another region or country. The Dark Angel is a novel centered around relationships, relationships between people, the area where they live and the history of the local area.

I enjoyed reading The Dark Angel and I feel exactly the same about it as I did with books 8 and 9. Elly writes her novels really well, high quality and with a warmth that makes you feel part of the story. As with books 8 and 9, I consider The Dark Angel to be a GOOD read and it gets 4 stars from me. I now feel like I have become a fan and you can count me in for book 11.

There is no need to go into great depth as the formula is very familiar. Griffiths uses the same characters for her base, adds a few new ones to change it up, throws in a murder or two or three, moves the locale to a small town in Italy and voila the tenth in the Ruth Galloway Series.

Unfortunately, the archaeological aspect is lacking, the murder ho hum, the new characters unlikeable and the rest not very convincing. Ms. Griffiths has offered better in her earlier books in this series.

Thank you NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for a copy.

Elly Griffiths continues the mixed-up life of archeologist Ruth Galloway who is called to help with forensic review of a corpse found in the Italian dig of Angelo, one of her previous relationships, Ruth lands in a messy small Italian town history with touches of the Italian fascists of World War II while her on again off again love interest and father of her daughter sticks his nose in. Whodunit? Will Ruth's life finally get less messy?

I enjoy this series very much and always look forward to the next. I liked the way Elly Griffiths spiced things up this time by moving the location to Italy and by bringing back a central character. #TheDarkAngel #NetGalley

Elly Griffiths takes a convoluted route in The Dark Angel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, digital galley) to get her series characters from England to Italy to solve mysteries old and new. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and young daughter Kate arrive first when Ruth is asked by an Italian archaeologist to consult on a Roman skeleton at the center of a television documentary. But then the town's priest is found murdered in a case with secrets going back to World War II. Meanwhile, DCI Harry Nelson, Ruth's sometimes lover and Kate's father, hears of earthquakes in the region, and flies to Italy, leaving behind his pregnant wife Michelle. She doesn't know if Nelson is the father of her baby or if it's the police officer with whom she had an affair. Fans of the series will find these domestic entanglements as interesting as details  of the Italian crimes. La famiglia!
from On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever

The Dark Angel is #10 in the Ruth Galloway series best read in order. Looking to get away from a tense situation at home, Ruth jumps at the chance to go to Italy and give her expert opinion of some recently excavated bones. And, of course, stumbles into a little murder and mayhem involving WWII spies and Nazi sympathizers. Meanwhile DCI Nelson, the married father of Ruth’s daughter Kate, is dealing with the surprise pregnancy of his wife Michelle.

Love this series, especially the characters and historical facts I learn.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, Parts of it are slow and repetitive in Ruth and Nelsons' guilt around their affair and where their lives are going and it took a while to get to the meat of the story. It was very poignant when Don Tomaso and Tim die. I definitely would read more books by Ms Griffiths. #TheDarkAngel #NetGalley

Let me start by saying that I love the Ruth Galloway series. The characters, especially Ruth, have become like old friends so this tenth outing feels wonderfully familiar.

With that said, this book didn’t give me any sense of satisfaction. The central mystery of the book is dull, and we don't really care about how or why this murder occurred. The Ruth/Harry/Michelle/Tim love "quadrangle" has become boring and predictable; it has gone on way too long. And the ending, which includes the loss of a major character, was so disappointing and felt rushed and silly.

I hope that Elly Griffiths comes back strong in the next book because this one was a dull spot in what is normally a great series.

THE DARK ANGEL by Elly Griffiths is a new addition to her Ruth Galloway series. For those unfamiliar with the series, the character Ruth lives in Norfolk, England and is a forensic archeologist with a complicated personal life. The local Detective Chief Inspector, Harry Nelson, fathered Ruth’s child Kate about 6 years ago, but he is still married to his now pregnant wife, Michelle. I mention those details because they figure prominently in the story which is as much about skeletons found in Italy, one ancient and one from a World War II era murder, as it is about who is the father of Michelle's baby. More than just a standard mystery (someone else is murdered, too), this tale takes place primarily in Italy where Ruth is invited to offer her professional perspective on a stalled archeological dig. There is an air of menace both in the small Italian village and back in England where a criminal Nelson helped jail is released for good behavior and begins to stalk law enforcement officials. Fans of the series will enjoy this addition, although it works as a stand-alone, too. THE DARK ANGEL received starred reviews from both Booklist and Library Journal; recommended if you are looking for a summer mystery read that takes place in a sunny, holiday venue. Although slow in parts (plenty of angst over the personal situations), I found myself staying up late to finish THE DARK ANGEL because the suspense builds quickly at the end.

3.5 / 5

A new Ruth Galloway mystery is always a reason to celebrate!

While this wasn't the strongest of the series, in terms of the mystery, I think that it was quite good in terms of character storylines. This series is one of my favourite and it is because of the amazing characters that Elly Griffiths has created and developed over ten books. I liked that we got perspectives on some new people we haven't really touched much on before and, as always, I love spending time with Ruth.

If you are already a fan, enjoy The Dark Angel! If you haven't read Elly Griffith before, I recommend you start with The Crossing Places; this is a series you want to read from the beginning!

Elly Griffiths is one of my favorite authors and I love her Ruth Galloway series, so I was very excited to be able to read her newest novel before publication. Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I have read each book in the series and have them all - until now. I enjoy the play between the characters but I felt the trip to Italy was a little contrived and not very interesting. It just didn't fit well into the series. The parts of the book taking place in the UK were great and I gobbled them up, but I couldn't get into the Italy plot at all.

I sincerely hope that the author goes back to England for her next series or maybe another country. This just wasn't my favorite, but still well worth reading. The plot twists continue!

As soon as I finish reading a Ruth Galloway mystery, I long for the next one to come out. I very highly recommend the series. The characters are quirky, the relationships complicated, the settings well described and...the mysteries are good too.

In this latest novel, Ruth, a forensic archaeologist, travels to Italy. She is accompanied by her friend Shona, Shona's son and Ruth's daughter, Kate. Nelson, a police inspector and Cathbad, a Druid (yes!) eventually travel to Italy as well. The Italian town setting is eerily described.

Ruth has come to Italy to offer an opinion on ancient bones but bones from WW II also come to light. There is intrigue and murder. All is eventually solved.

Best of all, there are the relationships; Ruth and Nelson, Nelson and Michelle, Michelle and Tim, for the adults and other relationships between parents and their children including Ruth and Kate, Nelson and Kate and Michelle and Laura.

While the mysteries are good, it is quirky, eccentric Ruth and her relationship with Nelson that I most eagerly follow. If you have read the series, rejoice in this latest entry and, if you haven't, start from the beginning and rejoice in discovering a fine series.