Sunday, September 4, 2016

The Ghost Fields

A digger has uncovered a plane in a field.  The pilot is still inside, so DCI Nelson calls his forensic archeologist, Ruth Galloway to have a look.  She notices that the pilot has a bullet hole in his head when so looks through the windscreen.  This is definitely a crime scene.  With the aid of the American Air Force, the body is identified.  He appears to be related to a local family.

The strange thing is that the pilot of this particular plane had ejected before the plane crashed and the body was supposedly someone who had gone down in a B17 at sea during the war.  The body is the brother to a man whose family owned the land where the plane was found.  Now, the daughter of the dead man wants to come from America.

Nelson requests Ruth to help him with the investigation.  They discover a recently turned over plot in the family's pet cemetery.  Could this be where the body had been?  Ruth does a bit of her own amateur sleuthing, but what can she turn up?

After the funeral of the dead man, his great-niece is attacked outside the family home.  Fortunately the blow to her head is not overly serious.  The following day, her brother finds human remains in one of his pig pens.  Nelson wonders at the connection.  At Halloween, one of Nelson's team, DS Dave Clough, is stabbed in the chest and left for dead.  Nelson is sure it is connect to the case they are working on, but how?

The human remains turn out to be related to the family at the centre of the investigation.  How was he killed?  Why was he killed?  Nelson is sure that the family is involved, but he has no evidence.

How will Nelson solve this murder case?  Will Ruth's forensic evidence be of any help?  Author Elly Griffths has written another fast paced action filled murder mystery that the reader will find hard to put down.  An enjoyable read.

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