The Dark Angel is written by Elly Griffiths and is Book #10 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway Mystery series.
The Dark Angel is a very atmospheric mystery. Ruth has been invited by old friend Angelo Morelli to travel to Italy to help identify bones found in the very picturesque Italian countryside.
Ruth jumps at the chance for a holiday and travels with Kate, Shona and Louis to Castello degli Angeli. But all is not as it seems - the bones, the area, Angelo & his family - all harbor age-old secrets.
I was not prepared for the ending and the future changes that lie in store for the characters.
I can’t wait to read the next installment, The Stone Circle. **** ( )

The will-they-won’t they in this series takes some pretty wild turns.

Ruth Galloway along with her daughter Kate and her friend Shona and her son Louis are invited to Italy at the request of an Italian archaeologist Ruth had met at a conference years earlier. He has found some Roman bones, but it looks like some joker is trying to disrupt his dig and ruin his opportunity to be on television.

The invitation comes at a perfect time for Ruth. She's recently lost her mother to a massive stroke. She's also rekindled her romance with Nelson but that is skuttled when Nelson's wife announces that she is pregnant. However, Michelle hasn't mentioned that the baby could have been fathered by her lover who was once a subordinate of Nelson's.

Meanwhile at home in England, a murderer Nelson put away has been released from prison claiming to have been born again. However, that doesn't explain his lurking outside the homes of police officers who were instrumental in his arrest.

When there is an earthquake in Italy, Nelson rushes to Ruth and Kate's side and gets there just as the local priest is murdered. Motives could lead back to WWII and the Resistance movement as local feelings are still high on the topic.

This was another excellent mystery with a rich emotional element. Ruth's feelings for Nelson and his for her couldn't really be any more complicated. ( )

Ruth Galloway along with her daughter Kate and her friend Shona and her son Louis are invited to Italy at the request of an Italian archaeologist Ruth had met at a conference years earlier. He has found some Roman bones, but it looks like some joker is trying to disrupt his dig and ruin his opportunity to be on television.

The invitation comes at a perfect time for Ruth. She's recently lost her mother to a massive stroke. She's also rekindled her romance with Nelson but that is skuttled when Nelson's wife announces that she is pregnant. However, Michelle hasn't mentioned that the baby could have been fathered by her lover who was once a subordinate of Nelson's.

Meanwhile at home in England, a murderer Nelson put away has been released from prison claiming to have been born again. However, that doesn't explain his lurking outside the homes of police officers who were instrumental in his arrest.

When there is an earthquake in Italy, Nelson rushes to Ruth and Kate's side and gets there just as the local priest is murdered. Motives could lead back to WWII and the Resistance movement as local feelings are still high on the topic.

This was another excellent mystery with a rich emotional element. Ruth's feelings for Nelson and his for her couldn't really be any more complicated. ( )

This is the tenth novel in the Ruth Galloway series and I consider it one of my favorites.

First thought is that this is the first book in the series to really surprise me and shock me. For that alone it gets 4 stars. I had to race through the latter part of the book and felt like I should go back and read parts at a more normal pace. So I did that a couple weeks later. I had ideas where this story might go based on the ending of the prior book and I was very wrong. This series sure has hooks in me now.

I went back and re-read much of this book. It is different than the other books in the series because the setting is not primarily on the Norfolk coast, but instead in Italy. The mysteries in here had me wondering throughout the book. I'll confess to not really trying to "solve" the mysteries, but instead just enjoyed the narrative. We get inside the heads of various characters and see things that we have not seen before. The tension builds well in this story as well as the relationships between the characters. Regular readers of the series will be surprised. ( )