This twelfth entry in Griffiths' series starring British forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is set two years after The Stone Circle (2019) and finds Ruth living in Cambridge with her American partner and nine-year-old daughter, Kate. Ruth misses the quiet beauty of the Norfolk salt marshes, but her complicated relationship with Kate's father, DCI Harry Nelson, has driven her to create some distance. Meanwhile, Nelson is pleased that Ivor March has been convicted of the murders of two young women but remains convinced that he is also guilty of additional killings. March surprisingly offers to reveal where those additional bodies are buried, but only if Ruth will head up the excavation. The murder of another young woman complicates matters further, suggesting that a copycat could be at work. Grffiths not only puts Ruth in harm's way, forcing her to fight for her life against a terrifying assault, she also takes the reader's breath away with one final masterstroke in which a character's true identity is revealed. Once again expertly incorporating myth and folklore into the story--this time, it's the menacing Lantern Men, said to haunt the local fens and who may be responsible for the killings--Griffiths has delivered a perfect Halloween read.

In Griffiths's latest, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway has a new home, job, and partner but pitches in to help old flame DCI Nelson. She's trying to locate a serial killer's victims, supposedly buried near the fens, where ghostly figures with lanterns are said to lure people to their deaths.