I did not realise when I started reading this that Elly Griffiths intended to end the Ruth Galloway series here. But the way the characters were acting together with the ‘Last’ bit in the title meant that I cottoned on to it whilst I was reading.

The ongoing soap opera style story line between the main characters gets to move on. Although I’ve certainly been coming back for more I really think this should have happened a few books back. Had it been dragged out too much longer I think I’d have chucked the series in at some point; there’s only so much lack of resolution I can take. And if Griffiths does write more then it’ll be fresher for things having been changed up a bit.

And for all the ongoing background story there’s a reasonably decent mystery in here as well. It’s appropriate that it concerns a twenty year old disappearance of an archeology student and makes sense that Cathbad was involved in the past as well as in the present. It felt like there were lots of threads tying themselves together from different books in here. I think I probably missed a lot of the threads but I like that long time readers and re-readers are being rewarded.

Apparently Griffiths has bowed to her fans and said that Ruth will return but I’m actually really pleased with how this book went down and wouldn’t mind it being the end of the series at all.