Cover Image: The Night Hawks

The Night Hawks

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Member Reviews

When DCI Nelson is called to an murder scene at an amateur archaeological dig his next move is to call Ruth Galloway archaeologist and ex lover. Next a scientist and his wife are found murdered on a farm with a tragic past. Nelson tries to figure out the connect between these murders and the amateur archaeologists group called The Night Hawks when another body appears but was it murder?
An absolutely entertaining read with plenty of mystery, suspense and eerie sightings to keep the reader turning pages way past bedtime.

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A solid mystery, though I had trouble getting into it. There are a LOT of characters, and I found myself forgetting each person’s role. Other than that, this is an enjoyable read.

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I am an avid Ruth Galloway fan! Ruth is a forensic archaeologist in Norfolk England with a complicated personal life., a diverse group of friends - including a Druid, and a penchant for getting involved with murder! Every book in the series is a page turner.. In "The Night Hawks" Ruth is back in Norfolk as a Department Head at the University with a new employee who seems to pop up everywhere she goes. The local metal detector group discovers a body and Ruth is called in and the bodies start to pile up! A creepy farm, a ghostly dog, and the deaths start to look like they are connected. Once again a page turner that leaves you wanting more!

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Thanks to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I was younger, as in grade school/high school/college, I mostly read mysteries. They were just my thing. I started with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, the Clue books from Scholastic Book Fair brochures, the Boxcar Children. I graduated into Agatha Christie and some more modern authors.

And then I discovered Goodreads and branched out into other genres. After that, a friend's Urban Fantasy suggestion led to a years long obsession with the genre, at the expense of reading more mysteries.

But you know what? I picked up Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series, book one - The Crossing Places, for a group read, and fell in love with her writing. I love her characters, her mysteries, the perfect balance of intrigue and character development with a dash of history and setting thrown in.

This entry into the series was no exception. As we've gotten to know the people of the town, we've seen the cast grow, and that's blossomed into being deeply invested in their lives outside of the main mystery plot as well.

This one definitely throws some wrenches into the works.

Highly recommended for mystery lovers, but please please please, jump in with the first book rather than delving into this one too early. There are plot points that will be much more appreciated with knowing the character history.

Four and a half stars, rounded down.

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You know when you're alone in the dark and your brain starts to say: "It's been a while since we've thought about things that go bump in the night........"

The Night Hawks is kinda like that. We've got a group of scientifically centered men with metal detectors that prowl about the beaches in North Norfolk at night. They're somewhat like hunters gravitating towards ancient artifacts and perhaps coins from the Iron Age. They move about carefully so as not to tamper too much with the relics that lie below.

On a moonless night, no one prepared them for a boney foot attached to a long boney leg within the tall sea grass. Alan White, the retired teacher of this bunch, swiftly reaches for a pulse. Not a blip. With shaking hands, Alan puts in a call to the local police and DCI Harry Nelson of the Serious Crimes Unit is on the scene in minutes. The body appears to be a young male about twenty years old with a peculiar snake tattoo slinking up the side of his neck. Who is he and how did he come to be on the beach so late at night?

As the sun comes up, Nelson contacts Dr. Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist. Ruth is the department head of Natural Sciences at the college. She and Nelson share a professional history as well as a personal one. Kate, their ten year old daughter, is the result of a long term affair in the past. Although Nelson has his own family, there's still a flicker between them..

Elly Griffith fills this one delightfully with legends and myths. We hear the howls of a mysterious dog in the dark and Griffiths sends in the foreboding vibes of the Black Shuck. Whoa to those who recognize his baying as he signals out to humans to be the harbinger of death. And the tattoo on the dead man's neck may well be the appearance of the sinister Norfolk sea serpent off the North Sea coast. Perhaps that explains how the body count is ratcheting up when a local doctor and his wife are found dead on their farm. It looks to be murder/suicide. But why?

The Night Hawks can be read as a standalone, but those of us familiar with the past novels rally around the usual well-developed characters that have surrounded this series for some time. There have been changes in their lives through the years and Griffiths allows us to marvel at their adaptability. The Night Hawks just adds more depth to this series. And as always, Griffiths makes her readers sift through the situations for the hidden nuggets. Well done, Elly Griffiths, well done.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and to the talented Elly Griffiths for the opportunity.

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Trying to read during this pandemic found me looking for comfort and '"sameness", a place were I could return for a few minutes or hours everyday and find a world that was the same. - enter the Ruth Galloway series. I started with the first novel, "The Janus Stone" after searching for a "if you like....Sue Grafton" and up popped Elly Griffiths novels. I was hooked from the first book.

Finding a copy of "The NIghthawks" on Netgalley was equivalent to an early Christmas gift. The way Griffiths has you caught up in Ruth's life, with her friends, co-workers, and family saga and her work at the university is seamless.

It is important I believe to read this series in order, as opposed to reading the NIghthawks, as a stand alone novel to get the full scope of "Ruth's world" that Elly Griffiths has created.

I have recommended this series to many library customers.

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Houghton Mifflin,Court, Elly Griffiths and Netgalley.
I suppose that I've only ever read one other book from this author. I had nothing but praise for that book.
I'm sure this author has her fans. As a newbie, I should know better.
If I can find a few of this author's early books on sale, then I'll read them. But, as someone who received her umpteenth book for free? I'm still not impressed

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At first, I would like to thank Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for allowing me to review this book. Keep in mind that my review, however, is my true opinion on this book.

Ruth is back in Norfolk as head of archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. But then a group of local metal detectorists finds a body. And as if that was not enough, they shortly after find yet another body. This time, a suicide body. Nelson obviously invests his time in this case, to try and figure out, what is going on.

There is no reason to hide it; I love the Ruth Galloway books and Elly Griffiths as an author. And we have yet another book in the series as number 13: "The Night Hawks." And it is all the things you love from this series once more. It is an incredible book!

When I have reviewed Elly Griffiths's books in the past, I have always mentioned the landscape descriptions. It is such a beautiful landscape, and I love imagining all the things described in the books. It is very well written. And Elly Griffiths knows exactly how to create beautiful pictures in our minds.

I love Ruth Galloway and her character. I always enjoy reading about Ruth's and Nelson's differences, but especially their willingness to cooperate. The characters are in general very distinctive and easy to understand, and all follow through with the story.

This is an exciting and at the same time beautiful crime story!

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Grand read! Truly loved this from the wonderful characters, the well plotted mystery, the world details all combine into an engaging read.

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The Night Hawks is a book I couldn't put down. Ruth Galloway is the head of archaeology at the University of North Norfolk, A group[ of local metal detectorists known as the Night Hawks are searching for treasure; however, what they find is murder. They uncover Bronze Age artifacts on the beach, next to a recently deceased body, Later they uncover a murder-suicide. Add to this a ghost, the Black Shuck, a humongous black dog who is known as a harbinger of death. This is the first Elly Griffiths book I've read. It won't be the last.

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I have friend's who love Griffiths Ruth books. I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier ones. But, good grief. Ruth is now head of the department but puts up with having her place!ent tell her what to do? She throws over a really good guy and is still simmering over Nelson? My patience has run out.it's

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Ruth Galloway, fifty-one, is a forensic archaeologist and the head of her department at the University of North Norfolk. She lives with her ten-year-old daughter, Kate, in a remote cottage near the Saltmarsh, a place that is reputed to contain unique spiritual and psychic energy. Sometimes Ruth wonders if it is appropriate to raise a child in this setting, but she, Kate, and their cat, Flint, feel at home here. Meanwhile, Ruth's former lover, DCI Harry Nelson—who is Kate's father and a married man with three other children—wants to keep working in the Serious Crimes Unit, even though his superintendent, Jo Archer, has been pressuring him to retire.

In Elly Griffiths' latest mystery, "The Night Hawks," Ruth once again becomes embroiled in a many-faceted case and, in addition, is looking forward to excavating what appears to be a Bronze Age burial site. Nelson and his colleagues are investigating multiple crimes: the corpse of a young man is found washed up on the beach; a husband and his wife, Douglas and Linda Noakes, are found dead of gunshot wounds; and a member of the night hawks dies after his head is bashed in. The night hawks are individuals who scour the shorefront with metal detectors, searching for treasure.

Unfortunately, the plot is, for the most part, dull, confusing, and poorly constructed. Few of the characters stand out, since the majority of them are so underdeveloped. Aside from the intelligent, independent, and self-contained Ruth Galloway, one who does make an impression is David Brown, a lecturer that Ruth recently hired. The obnoxious David intrudes on Ruth's privacy, brags about his expertise, and frequently behaves as if he, not Ruth, is the boss. Aside from Nelson, the detectives include the ever-efficient DI Judy Johnson, the brusque and ambitious DS Tanya Fuller, and DC Tony Zhang. Judy's partner, Cathbad, a druid who tends to make arcane statements about force fields and such, serves as little more than window dressing here. When readers eventually learn the identity of the perpetrator, the more persnickety ones may roll their eyes in exasperation. Few of the victims are intriguing enough to concern us, and the melodramatic conclusion is cobbled together in a slipshod manner. This is a disappointing entry in what was once an outstanding series.

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Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Another thrilling adventure by Elly Griffiths. I am a huge fan of her Ruth Galloway series so I was always going to like this book. Like her others, the reader is drawn into a historical mystery which has consequences in the present day. This time a Bronze Age burial has been discovered on a Norfolk beach, near to wear a modern body was also found. What ensues is a thrilling ride through the seedy underworld of medical experimentation gone wrong. Ruth, of course, joins forces with Nelson and Cathbad to figure out what exactly is going on with the titular Night Hawks.

This adventure was comfortingly similar to the pattern of other Galloway novels. One new character offers the potential for plenty of intriguing drama in the future. But I definitely miss Frank; he was so dashing and a nice departure from the usual romantic overpairing in the series. As always, I enjoyed the addition of local Norfolk lore into the story. I am already looking forward to seeing what Ruth gets up to next!

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Ruth Galloway a forensic archaelogist of repute does not like amateur detectives. Very little patience with them. She is however good at not showing exactly how she feels and when a body is discovered in a nearby trench, it is a Bronze Age one and right up her street. She did not think that it will lead to a murder and another body to be discovered and dealt with. She did not think very much of the Metal Detectorists who also haunted the sites hoping to discover buried treasure in large measure. She had her reservations about all of them.

When the body count starts piling up, and when there are too many coincidences the mystery deepens. Added to the tension is the fact that DI Nelson is also the father of Ruth's daughter and there is so much unwritten past and present and future in their dealings. The fact that he is now married to someone else, with a very young baby son does not detract from the chemistry that exists between the two.

Story No. 13 in the series, this is not getting stale or boring.

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Another engaging book in the Ruth Galloway series. As always I learned something new about British history and was entertained by the ongoing saga of her life.

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For those already thoroughly under the spell of Ruth Galloway’s story, this will not disappoint. As always there’s a recent murder, old bones, and a local legend entwined to keep the story moving. For fans of the series, the biggest surprise is the cliffhanger at the end that will leave us eagerly awaiting the next book.

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This was my first time reading a Ruth Galloway mystery. I discovered that, although it’s possible to read this without reading the previous books, there must be a lot of history and character building that was already developed in the earlier books. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel a deep connected to the characters. I also found the story dragged quite a bit at the beginning. However, that might be due to my not having spent time over several books building history with the main characters. Near the end, though, the pace picked up and the real action began.
If you enjoy mysteries that aren’t too cozy or too gruesome, and if you have the time to read the earlier volumes in this series, you may enjoy this instalment. If you’re looking for a true stand alone that will grab your interest and not let go, this might not be the book for you.
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.

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This is a great continuation of the Ruth Galloway story with an intricately woven path through murders that shake the community.
We anticipate each encounter between Ruth and Nelson as the intensity of the mystery builds.
The author has turned her attention to the crafting of a web of deception and intrigue with a hint of horror.
An unlikely partnership develops that further deepens our attachment to these people searching for truth and love.

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I adore the Ruth Galloway series and was delighted to get the opportunity to review the newest book in the series The Night Hawks. I absolutely loved this book, the plot was fantastic and kept me hanging on to the last few chapters. I can’t wait to read more from the series in the years to come

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"Night Hawks" by Elly Griffiths

In the 13th Ruth Galloway mystery series, the old gang comes back together again. In a story that has murder, funerals and even a wedding, DCI Nelson manages to get Ruth, now back at University of North Norfolk and head of her own department, knee deep in trouble as he involves her with a group of metal detectorists called the Night Hawks.

When two bodies are discovered on the beach where the Night Hawks are searching for ancient treasures, Ruth is called in to determine the age of the older remains while DCI Nelson and his crew try and determine what caused the death of the recently deceased.

Members of the Night Hawks, keep turning up at ensuing crime scenes as DCI Nelson and his team hunt for motives and suspects. An old farmstead, scene of one of the crimes, becomes a pivotal setting for the conclusion of the mystery.

Elly Griffiths never fails to keep you involved in her Ruth Galloway's series. You become intimately involved with not only solving a crime that has lots of twists and turns but also in the Ruth-Harry- Michelle triangle. Elly Griffiths always leaves you waiting for her next Ruth Galloway adventure at the close of her story

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