Elly Griffiths: Author of The Last Remains

This week Jack is joined by Elly Griffiths. In 2009 she released The Crossing Places and introduced the world to the wonderful Dr Ruth Galloway who over several books has garnered a loyal cohort of fans from across the world. Now many mysteries later Ruth's story is coming to an end with the release of The Last Remains in January of this year.

Elly has also penned the Brighton Mysteries series as well as the Children's A Girl Called Justice series. One thing we can be sure of is there is always another great Griffith story on the horizon.

Purchase The Last Remains

(1:03) Closing the book on Ruth Galloway
(3:32) Elly's childhood reading
(17:28) Recent reading habits
(37:00) Elly's writing space
(45:15) An all-time favourite
(50:03) The Last Remains

Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, a weekly podcast by the independent award-winning bookshop, Mostly Books. Nestled in the Oxfordshire town of Abingdon-on-Thames, Mostly Books has been spreading the joy of reading for fifteen years. Whether it’s a book, gift, or card you need the Mostly Books team is always on hand to help. Visit our website.

The podcast is produced and presented by Jack Wrighton and the team at Mostly Books. It is edited by Story Ninety-Four. Find us on Twitter @mostlyreading & Instagram @mostlybooks_shop.

Meet the host:
Jack Wrighton is a bookseller and social media manager at Mostly Books. His hobbies include photography and buying books at a quicker rate than he can read them.
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The Last Remains is published in the UK by Quercus

Books mentioned in this episode include:
The Starlight Barking by Dodie Smith - ISBN:9781405204125
The Only Suspect by Louise Candlish - ISBN: 9781398509726
Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson - ISBN: 9781405953283
The Italian Quarter by Domenica De Rosa - ISBN: 9781843958130
The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown - ISBN: 9781782691853
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons - ISBN: 9780241418895

To find more titles, visit our website

Creators & Guests

Host

Mostly Books

Award-winning indie bookshop in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

What is Mostly Books Meets...?

Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, a podcast by the independent bookshop, Mostly Books. Booksellers from an award-winning indie bookshop chatting books and how they have shaped people's lives, with a whole bunch of people from the world of publishing - authors, poets, journalists and many more. Join us for the journey.

Jack Wrighton - 0:05
Welcome to Mostly Books Meets, the weekly podcast for the incurably bookish. We will be talking to authors and creatives from across the world of publishing and discussing the books they have loved. Looking for a recommendation? Then look no further. Head to your favourite cosy spot and let us pick out your next favourite book. This week on Mostly Books Meets we're welcoming legendary author Elly Griffiths. In 2009 she released The Crossing Places and introduced the world to the wonderful Dr Ruth Galloway who over several books has garnered a loyal cohort of fans from across the world. Now many mysteries later Ruth's story is coming to an end with the release of The Last Remains in January of this year. Elly has also penned the Brighton Mysteries series as well as the Children's A Girl Called Justice series. One thing we can be sure of is there is always another great Griffith story on the horizon. Elly, welcome to Mostly Books Meets.

Elly Griffiths - 1:01
Thanks for having me.

Jack Wrighton - 1:03
Our absolute pleasure. Now, Elly, for you, you're obviously a seasoned writer, you've had great books released out there. Do you, when you get to the end of a series, do you have a sort of a sense of loss? Or is it quite nice to kind of close the door on one series and kind of look towards the future?

Elly Griffiths - 1:22
Well, you know, the Ruth series is really the only one I've ever actually properly ended. So, I've said that the last book, the one that's just come out in February, The Last Remains, is the last for now. I've let myself have a little bit of a wriggle room. I've said it's the last for now and actually, that did feel quite good because I could plan that last book and bring in all the themes that I wanted to bring in and tie up a few loose ends, which were there from the whole series actually, so I went right back really to the beginning and tried to tie up all the loose ends. So actually that was great, it felt very good to do that and to be in control of that. But having said that, after I finished, I did feel quite a sense of loss, yes, and I really do miss Ruth. I think it is because I'm not thinking about starting the next one about now, I'd be thinking about, you know, the next one. So I think it's quite good for us both to have a break from each other. But yeah, there is, there's both kind of pleasure and a bit of loss, yeah.

Jack Wrighton - 2:17
Yes and I like that as well it's you know good to give yourself that wriggle room as well because of course you know I imagine you get to know these characters you know you've been with them for such a long time and to sort of say oh well that's it for definite must be quite hard because you who knows in sort of you know 10 years time or wherever you could find yourself wanting to kind of bring Ruth out again yeah.

Elly Griffiths - 2:42
Yeah especially with such a, as you say with such a big cast of characters because there are various paths I could take. You know, Ruth has an 11-year-old daughter. Well, you know, maybe I wait till she's a teenager. Maybe I wait till she's grown up, you know, and sort of focus on her or focus on some of the other characters. So there are options I could take and I have to say, without giving too much away, I have left some of them open for myself.

Jack Wrighton - 3:06
Not yet. Don't want to tie everything up to the point where, you know, you're left with no sort of strings to follow if...

Elly Griffiths - 3:13
Yeah, yes, exactly. I've got a friend who wrote a really good book but he said I really regretted because I made him an orphan and he has no friends so where do we go with the next one whereas I have provided Ruth with quite a few family members and friends so there are many directions I could go.

Jack Wrighton - 3:32
That's a good note for potential authors out there listening to this is, yes don't orphan your character if you want potential spin-off options. Don't make them too much of a loner. Yes, we like an interesting loaner, but give them some connections that you can work off. Now on Mostly Books Meets, what we love to do is talk to people about books. Mostly Books is of course a small independent bookshop nestled in the small town of Abingdon in Oxfordshire and we kind of like to turn our guests into booksellers for the day during the interview and we always start with childhood books and if I was walking into a bookshop and you were there Elly and I was asking for a book recommendation for a child, what would you be putting off the shelf for me?

Elly Griffiths - 4:17
Okay I might say to you, imagine if you woke up one morning and you could fly and at first you just think you can fly a little bit but then you realise you can go right up in the air and you can whoosh along, in fact you call it whooshing, and all the adults are asleep, all the people in charge are asleep, so you can fly to London and you can go to number 10 Downing Street and he could fly around there and then imagine that a star comes down from the sky and invites you to go and visit him in space and then imagine that you're a dog and that's the book that I might take down from the shelf for years The Starlight Barking by Dodie Smith which is one of my favourite books as a child it's kind of a sequel to 101 Dalmatians which is so well known and of course so wonderful and magical but I kind of like Starlight Barking best. It's a strange old book and it's full of whooshing flying dogs. I mean who wouldn't like that really? And they do fly to Trafalgar Square and they talk to Sirius the dog star so that is a book that I might get down from the shelf.

Jack Wrighton - 5:19
Wow and you've really sold that to me. I must confess I feel terrible as a bookseller admitting this but that's actually I haven't heard of that Dodie Smith book so It's so lovely to be surprised because you know we and no offence to the authors that have mentioned you know things like The Hobbit and things like that but you know there's some books you come across quite a lot as that answer but that one that one's really taken me you know by surprise which we like.

Elly Griffiths - 5:45
Oh good! Do search it out it's I think it's a little bit in the shadow of 101 dimensions and it's such a wonderful magical book and the idea of sort of waking up and being able to fly and to whoosh around is just incredible and it does include the Prime Minister's dog which I think is quite fun.

Jack Wrighton - 6:00
Oh wow, you make it sound almost psychedelic with the, you know talking to the star and everything I'm like oh wow there's so much going on.

Elly Griffiths - 6:09
It is one of those books I think that's the wonderful thing about children's books isn't it really good children's books because they totally sell you that universe and that place and actually when you start to describe it you think this does feel you know I wouldn't say this to a child you know does feel quite trippy doesn't it? It's just really quite strange. But I can't think of Sirius the Dog Star without thinking of that book, and it's, and the dog days of August. So it really is worth reading.

Jack Wrighton - 6:35
And that's always a good sign of a book that's stayed with you, particularly a childhood book is when, you know, even in your adult life, you're kind of, you know, it becomes part of the, kind of the makeup of how you see the world. You know, when you see that star, you always think of that.

Elly Griffiths - 6:50
It's so true. In fact, the little bit that I'm going to read my own book later on I realised that also references another favourite book The Magicians Nephew by C.S Lewis and that has really stayed with me so that's so true children what a wonderful thing to write a children's book and hope that it stays with people all their lives you catch them so early that it stays with them all those years.

Jack Wrighton - 7:09
And when were you when you first came across The Starlight Barking how old were you what was what was the situation?

Elly Griffiths - 7:15
I'm trying to think I think I was probably sort of about 10 or maybe 11. My mum read me and my sisters The Hundred and One Dalmatians and my mum was a great read. She really read well. Her dad was an actor and she was a great beautiful voice and she read really well. So I remember that and I remember that wonderful bit about coming home for Christmas and I read it to my kids. My daughter got very worried they wouldn't be home for Christmas but I know that I read Starlight the Viking on my own so I think I was that little bit older and so maybe I was sort of 11 or 12 but definitely has stayed with me.

Jack Wrighton - 7:47
As a child were you a voracious reader? What was your relationship like with books?

Elly Griffiths - 7:51
I really was, I mean I guess a lot of you were going to say this but I really was. I read all the time. I remember sort of sitting under the table reading Alice in Wonderland when I was really quite young, sort of about five or six and just thinking, amongst other things, because that's a book that stayed with me forever. You know you can spend the whole day reading. What a wonderful thing this is and obviously I must have been, I was in a house that appreciated you could spend the whole day reading and I wrote my first crime novel when I was 11 and it was called The Hair of the Dog, which must have been a phrase my parents used. I don't know if I understood the implications of it, you know, that you have a drink the night before you shove another drink the next day. I think that's the essence of that phrase. But it was a crime novel. It was set in the village nearby wherever I still live, Rottingdean in East Sussex and it was a very Agatha Christie's book. So, I think that was when I started reading Agatha Christie and also thought that I might try and be a writer so yeah so you can trace it back all that way.

Jack Wrighton - 8:48
Wow yeah, I'd love to see that 11-year-old crime novel and what was the crime in question do you remember was it?

Elly Griffiths - 8:55
It wasn't a bad setup though I say so myself Jack. It was a little village where nothing much happened which obviously was very much on my mind because it was where I lived really and a group of young people decide to stage of fake murder to bring the media down which of course in the 70s this would have been would have just been the print media but would bring the media to the village but of course the fake murder turns into a real murder and they've got more than they bargained for which I don't think is a bad setup I think I should try and rewrite it I have still got the beginning of it I can't find the end of it and I have slightly forgotten who did it but my mum kept the beginning of it so I have still got the beginning of it.

Jack Wrighton - 9:37
That's amazing and yeah I think particularly as you say you know print media then but in our kind of you know very connected kind of social media everyone being aware of kind of you know the 15 minutes of fame I think the idea of staging a murder in order to put your village on the map is you know just as feasible now.

Elly Griffiths - 9:58
Isn't it? And there is, you know, recent tragic events have shown people do are fascinated by murder and it's not just like these, sometimes in quite an unhealthy way really. So it is a rather dark way of putting a village on the map and, you know, there are some places that will be ever linked to murder in our minds, aren't there? So that's a kind of darker geography really, but I think it was something I'm quite interested in and I guess I'm really still interested in place and the importance of place. So yes, early stirrings of those ideas.

Jack Wrighton - 10:29
Yes, because of course, with the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, place is incredibly important to that and the story seems very rooted in its location. So that's something always as a writer, you've been sort of attracted to or drawn to.

Elly Griffiths - 10:44
Definitely, definitely. With Ruth's books, and you so rightly say, they start with the place really. It's the place that comes first. And I got the whole idea from them walking across Titchwell Marsh and the North Norfolk coast. So that idea of marshland being neither land nor sea, but something in between, so a kind of bridge to the afterlife. That whole thing really was the first idea for the Ruth books. But yes, it's always been placed and I have always been interested in, there's a little village near again, where I still live, that's a little spooky, it's in a little dip and you can't get there by car and I always used to, my kids and I always used to walk there. We used to tell ghost stories on the way there and I do remember writing short stories about that place when I was growing up. Yes. So place has always been very important and the idea that there was an atmosphere that sometimes a place does carry over the years, over the centuries, maybe.

Jack Wrighton - 11:36
Absolutely. Yes. It's amazing. You can go, I don't know, certain environments make you want to sort of tell stories or think of kind of, you know, certain types of stories. You know, I visited Dartmoor for the first time over the summer and you know, something about those very old landscapes. You get in those sort of marshlands all around the UK. You feel absolutely ready to sort of set up a little fire, if the law allows in that particular place for those listening and sort of tell stories. It feels deeply human in places like that, I feel.

Elly Griffiths - 12:09
It really does and I was in Howarth actually a couple of weeks ago in Yorkshire and went to - it just arrived at sort of six o'clock, I was doing a talk there and I went into grounds of the parsonage where the Brontes lived and all the rooks were cawing from the trees and you do think oh wow it's no wonder really that these wonderful stories came from this place it's so atmospheric so absolutely there's some places just meant for storytelling aren't there?

Jack Wrighton - 12:35
Yes, it makes you think that you know people should be sort of going out to these places and kind of soaking up the atmosphere if they feel they've got a book in them that's where they should be going to and sort of going back to children's books, as an author who writes both for adults and you've done children's books as well, do you find there's a different mindset for you? Do you sort of click into a different gear when doing children's books or is it just storytelling but you know by a different name?

Elly Griffiths - 13:03
Do you know it's not very different for me and you know I love children's fiction. I used to work in children's publishing actually at Harper Collins so I really love children's fiction but for me I don't know what it says about me that my writing is really no different. I honestly think the only difference between the Ruth books and the Justice books. The Justice book’s are quite a lot shorter really because I'm not a writer who uses loads of bad language or graphic violence so I didn't have to edit myself in that way. I guess there's no sex. I guess there's no sex in those books and there is sex in the Ruth books but otherwise I think Justice is basically a young Ruth and they're just shorter Ruth books really. But one of the things that really is true, I think possibly because children's books are often shorter, though nowadays they've actually got very long, very long compared to when I was editing them. But anyhow, because you've got a shorter, fewer number of words, it's all plot, really. So, it's all plot and then I wouldn't say fill it, I just fill in with a bit of landscape and a bit of other things like that. But you know what I mean that everything is plot and children are really good at plotting. When I do events in schools I often read a little bit from the first chapter and I say do you think there are any clues there? And they always get every one of them, however much you try to misdirect them and try and say oh look over there look at that nice seagull! But they're saying oh actually I'm really interested in what that character said. There's nowhere to hide I think so as a crime writer they've been very interesting and very good exercises in plotting and making sure that all the clues are there not too obvious a way for a very eagle-eyed audience I have to say an eagle is worth listening.

Jack Wrighton - 14:47
After doing that I can imagine the grown-up books are you know you're like oh no this is easy I know how to wrong for adults it's the children that are so tricky.

Elly Griffiths - 14:57
It's so true they're so quick at catching just little bits of dialogue you know quite often you know you can lose a little clue in dialogue but they are quick to notice that so yes absolutely it's it's a very good exercise and also children's audiences are lovely because they ask all sorts of great questions and also they ask things like what's your favourite pudding so who wouldn't like that really?

Jack Wrighton - 15:20
Exactly yeah they are important questions, what is your favourite pudding?

Elly Griffiths - 15:24
I think it's tiramisu I had to think about that it was really homemade tiramisu maybe.

Jack Wrighton - 15:30
Absolutely yes, yeah sticky toffee pudding for me. I'm very clear-eyed about that.

Elly Griffiths - 15:37
Yes, very quick you were.

Jack Wrighton - 15:39
Yes, very quick. Yeah, I'm always prepared to answer that question. But yes, that's something actually speaking to other children's authors or authors who have also written for children on the podcast is there's a real sense of energy and kind of excitement because it's kind of storytelling at its most dynamic really because as you say they're the most discerning audience. I think adults you know I don't know maybe after years of reading they're kind of... we have ways of thinking as adults don't we so we can be easier to wrong-foot whereas children's minds are kind of so open it's a real test of skill I think children's publishing.

Elly Griffiths - 16:14
And there is that freshness you know you think maybe a deserted sort of country house is a bit of a cliche for adult readers but the Dusty's books are set in a school in the middle of the Romney Marsh you do get children saying oh this is so exciting they're cut off in this lonely house in the snow and a murder's happened and it could be anyone and that isn't a cliche to them it's exciting for them yes but that's wonderful and like we were saying earlier what a wonderful thing it must be to write a children's book that stays with someone all their life but that feels such a privilege doesn't it?

Jack Wrighton - 16:46
Yeah absolutely and yes that must be interesting as an author because I suppose there's no, I don't know, there's no people can tell you in letters and things like that but I suppose there's kind of no way of knowing of the, you know, lasting effects because there's so many books that have had a lasting effect on me but there's no way the author knows because you know I'm not necessarily going to sort of reach out to them and tell them but…

Elly Griffiths - 17:06
Yes it's so interesting I had Anne Cleaves talking a few years ago and she was saying no actually also I talked to her on my podcast and this came up again she was a big fan of the Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pine books and I was too growing up and other books that have set in in Northumbria and things like that and you can see that in the adult Anne's writing and how wonderful it is that those books had such an effect on her.

Jack Wrighton - 17:28
Absolutely yeah and yeah particularly for writers you know they talking to writers on the podcast you really get a sense of that even writing years later that they're thinking of those kind of early very vivid reading experiences that had such an effect on them. Well obviously now sort of bringing us up to the future you're a celebrated and published author in terms of reading these days do you find is that something you have less time for because you're focusing on your own work or are you still quite a reader as well?

Elly Griffiths - 18:00
I'm still a real reader I think you kind of either are or you aren't aren't you and I couldn't go on a train or a plane without a book I have to have a book with me. I'm always reading at home. I'm afraid I take books in the bath, which I know is awful. My kids now won't lend me their books because of that. But yeah, I'm not so good with looking after books. But yeah, so I do read all the time. I now get sent quite, I'm so lucky because I get sent quite a few books to read, but I'm always also buying them. You know, when I'm in a bookshop doing a signing, I nearly always come out with a book because that's what you like if you love books or you look at something, "Oh I'd like to read that, well that looks really interesting, yeah, I'll pick that up." So yeah, so I'm still a reader. Maybe I read a bit slower. When I was an editor I used to read very quickly because that was part of my job and I would commute from Brighton to London and I would read a book each way and I do remember thinking, this is terrible really, but I used to worry that people on the train thought that I could, I only read children's books because I was a children's books editor. Well I used to want to say to them, "Do you know I can read adult books as well?" or to try and read them with that sort of editor-y expression which obviously nobody was interested in and nobody was looking at. But yes, so I used to read a book each way in those days but I read a bit slower now but I still do read all the time, couldn't go to sleep without reading a bit from in bed.

Jack Wrighton - 19:22
I'm sort of imagining you on that train sort of with the most serious pair of glasses you could find, you know, sort of a slight frown on your face thinking, "How do I show that I'm an”…

Elly Griffiths - 19:32
Maybe a pencil in hand, just to get notes. They probably just thought, oh my goodness, poor girl, she can't even understand this book. She has to make notes on it, but…

Jack Wrighton - 19:41
And how long were you in that role? How long was that a part of your life for?

Elly Griffiths - 19:46
Well, after university, I went to work in a library for a bit, but then I started off in publishing and I started as editorial assistant, I think, and then I became editorial director at Harper Collins Children's Books. So I was there about eight years in that role, yeah, and I loved it, oh who wouldn't love it? But, and I left really when I had my kids, I've got twins who are 24, so it's quite a long time ago now, but certainly it was a great job to have.

Jack Wrighton - 20:13
Yeah, that must have been fantastic, and to see the kind of industry from all of its different sides, 'cause of course some writers might just know the writing side, but it's such a fascinating industry, it's kind of nice to see it from the different angles as well.

Elly Griffiths - 20:27
It is, and sometimes writers get publishing quite wrong they write about it's quite interesting especially if they're super famous because they haven't seen the side of it of being you know not not uh it's a front list author not a really celebrated author so yeah and publishing has obviously changed a lot in those 25 years you know there's no… it really is so much more self-publishing now because amazon wasn't a thing there so things have changed a lot but other things do remain the same I think

Jack Wrighton - 20:58
I think the love of the physical book I think has endured in a way that I think for a while people thought you know I remember people sort of being like oh once kindle came along oh you know the real book will go but of course as with anything as with sort of radio and tv it's just part of the overall picture now you know it one hasn't trumped the other it's just yeah.

Elly Griffiths - 21:22
No and it's quite wonderful isn't it how um I think booksellers and publishers really up their game and they produce these very beautiful books and you see that on things like BookTok now, young people, she says, a thousand years old, but young people really love hardback beautiful books with lovely covers and sprayed edges and things like that and they're beautiful things in themselves and particularly as a reader of crime because if you read crime fiction you're a very active reader aren't you, very involved in it. That feeling you get when you've only got a few pages left. You don't get that from a Kindle, do you?

Jack Wrighton - 21:57
No, no, and as I, you mentioned sort of treating books quite badly, I for me a sort of a battered paperback is kind of, there's something quite pleasing about that because it sort of reflects how much you've enjoyed the book because I must confess again maybe this will lose me my job, I don't know, but I turn the corners of books over in order to mark the page.

Elly Griffiths - 22:20
Yes, well you're secret safe with me though obviously, and a podcast so not safe but I do the same but do you know something that I was thinking and it might have been said by somebody else but when you get one of those books that you might have dropped in the bath or what it is fatter isn't it? It's bigger than when you've got a new book so a new book is a slim thing but when you've read it and read it many times opened it up, put its spine open, dropped it in the bath it's fatter and it's fatter because you put more of yourself in it that's what you always think.

Jack Wrighton - 22:51
Oh goodness that's I'm gonna have to take a moment to digest that I think that's a very I love that idea yes it's so true they physically change quite a bit don't they?

Elly Griffiths - 23:01
And a reader changes a book and every decoding is another encoding every reading is another encoding so when sometimes people bring books to signings and they're very apologetic because they sort of haven't bought it there they say oh this is my old copy because I'm really happy to sign that because that really means something.

Jack Wrighton - 23:19
Yes because it's a lot of you know the the more battered the book the the more it's been loved you know it's it's been read several times it's been enjoyed passed around dropped in the bath potentially as well. It's all a good sign and I'll ask you now to recommend me a book that you've read recently that you've really connected with one that you would hand over to me?

Elly Griffiths - 23:42
Well, one I've just finished is The Only Suspect by Louise Candlish. Big Louise Candlish fan, she wrote Our House and this has a lot of the sort of classic Louise Candlish material in it. It starts off, it's a couple in a lovely suburban house. I always imagine our houses are so beautiful with kitchen islands and things and they live in a suburb of London called Silvergrove and they're happily married, they don't have children, they're trying to have children, they can't have children, they're happily married. He's a nice husband, he's a bit insular, he doesn't talk to the neighbours, but he's a very good dog owner, he seems... But when a nature trail opens up behind their house, he changes and that's because he's really worried about what that nature trail will dig up and I really enjoyed this, I thought it was a great example of how much to hold back and how much to tell the reader and it's a dual timeline, so it's partly in 90s London, where I lived in London in the 90s so I love that bit as well and partly in the present day so it's so I really enjoyed it the only suspect by Louise Candlish.

Jack Wrighton - 24:46
Yes that sounds very… when you mentioned the nature trail I don't know there's I got there's a little tingle there of oh goodness yeah that sounds yeah that sounds very...

Elly Griffiths - 24:55
And there are some lovely bits which are intentionally sort of slightly funny where he sort of sees children digging up the path oh no don't take the path you might have sent the rare orchids obviously thinking of something else so yeah it's very good.

Jack Wrighton - 25:10
Yes I think it's interesting isn't it because I think for those who don't read crime and sort of thriller that that maybe is an area of reading that they haven't explored is I think sometimes they imagine it to be quite humourless you know always very serious and it sort of takes some convincing to actually know once you read one you'll realise there's usually quite a lot of humour there.

Elly Griffiths - 25:32
There is, yes you think of the Rebus is quite funny and the Dylan Pascoe books are often very very funny and I was recommending a book the other day, funny enough I was doing a podcast with Jane Harper and we both recommended the same book, which must put it and it's Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. He's an Australian writer actually and it's so clever because it starts off with those 10, you remember those Ronald Knox's 10 rules of crime writing and he proceeds to break them all and he tells you when he's going to break them he's like on page 14, I break this rule so it's very funny but also it's a very clever crime novel so yes I love crime novels with a bit of humour in.

Jack Wrighton - 26:11
Absolutely and that sounds like if you're going to write a sort of crime novelist crime novel that sounds with the kind of breaking the rules that sounds you know I don't know I could all the crime novelists will be passing that around.

Elly Griffiths - 26:24
I think that's so clever more is so good about it is kind of meta in that way but actually it's is also a very good crime novel so it's not just that joke it is and they again they go off to a ski resort and there's snowed in and they're stuck there so got all those aspects as well so it's very funny.

Jack Wrighton - 26:40
And do you find as a novelist yourself that that reading experience kind of can spur you know really sort of spur you on and energize you for your own writing as well?

Elly Griffiths - 26:50
Definitely yes and I love reading generally I don't really read with much of a crime reader's head on. So I'm always surprised by the twist. I never catch it. And when I'm watching a TV programme, I'm not one of those people who I'm always just completely taken in by it. Oh, wow, they've got a different hat on. They're a different person. But yeah, like in opera where people just chase them with the eye mask and wow, I didn't recognise you on my side. I'm taken in by all that stuff. So yeah, but I do find it energising and also to read non-fiction as well and just generally just I loved reading books.

Jack Wrighton - 27:31
Yes and that's quite nice as well to hear that I don't know I can imagine it would be quite easy to become very sort of oh yeah I know what's happening here yeah this is this it's going to be this it's going to be this which of course can ruin the enjoyment I imagine it's nice that you're able to sort of just go along with it and enjoy.

Elly Griffiths - 27:49
And I don't always remember right also because I've pretty much read most Agatha Christie for example and I wrote a Miss Marple story last year for the new Miss Marple collection. I reread all the Miss Marple so you know I'm quite knowledgeable on that yet again they appear on television and I feel like saying sort of oh yes I remember who did it or do I remember? Taken in yet again.

Jack Wrighton - 28:12
Yes and of course I suppose with Marple is in that brilliant sort of position as a character where you know it's at a point now where it's kind of being reimagined by the fans you know with that collection last year or some of the tv adaptations might sort of slightly change the plot but I think that's quite an exciting thing I think it shows again a love of a particular character and the endurance of these kind of central characters that you find in these crime series people have such a love for them.

Elly Griffiths - 28:45
Yeah they do and she's a very clever character actually because you never hear her speaking, or Poirot, speaking of the first person and most of the books, a lot of the Marple books, are first person from a different person's point of view, like Murder in the Vicarage is first person from the vicar's point of view. So, she's actually an observed character. You see her through someone else's eyes and that actually makes a very interesting character to write about and also, it does mean, as you say, that we can sort of reinvent her in our own mind. So, she's a sort of shapeshifter really, just moving through the books in this very clever way, I think and of course we don't share her point of view because if we did, we'd know all the answers because she knows all the answers. So, I do think that's very, very cleverly done and it was interesting to go back to the books actually, after watching Joan Hickson, who was marvellous. Miss Marple and I love Jodie McEwan as well. But Kate Moss, who also had one of the books in the collection, said that she had realised that Miss Marple's tall in the books which I hadn't picked up but isn't that interesting because I don't think that's our mental image of Miss Marple.

Jack Wrighton - 29:49
No no that's it that's interesting because that shows a kind of I don't know how our brains are wired that if you because I suppose people do in their minds think Miss Marple sort of little yes little old lady. Yeah of course yeah it also kind of makes sense that I can imagine this sort of uh slightly sort of well-bred taller woman who sort of you know she knows what she thinks and she's got you know something to do so that makes sense as well.

Elly Griffiths - 30:13
Yes she does and I think I'm now wondering oh I'm quite small so a lot of people talk to me but I guess the question feels like she was quite a tall presence as well so yes.

Jack Wrighton - 30:22
Yes, yeah absolutely and you know as someone who's created characters that are so well loved is that quite an exciting thing when you're out there sort of meeting people at signings and things like that because of course every reader will have their own relationship with someone like Ruth, so that must be a very sort of exciting and rewarding thing for you as a writer.

Elly Griffiths - 30:44
It's such a wonderful thing, it's such an amazing thing isn't it that people have that really close relationship with somebody you've created and that their view of Ruth might not be yours, which is absolutely talking about the thing about putting something of yourself into the books again isn't it? It doesn't matter if their Ruth is not my Ruth and we often talk, people often ask, you know, are they going to be on TV? And I always say sort of rather disgruntled, you know, they've been optioned five times for TV, but it's never happened and I've recently on my podcast spoken to Anne Cleves and Mick Heron about the experience of seeing their books become these amazing TV adaptations. I'm trying to keep the resentment out of my voice, you know. What is it like, Mick? Tell me when to hang out with Gary Oldman! Micks great and his books are great and so Gary Oldman's really great as well. But actually in some ways that's quite nice because I can be talking to a room of 100 people and each one has a different Ruth in their heads and it might not be my Ruth, whereas I think if they're on TV maybe they would all start to coalesce around the TV Ruth. So actually in some ways it is quite nice because the pictures are better in our heads. We all know that as readers don't we? I mean that's why we read the pictures are better than our heads. So actually that is quite nice to think we all have that different view and I was saying recently that I had a view of Nelson as looking a bit like Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes in his waders in a freezing stream, looking quite grumpy and people say no that's not my view at all and that's quite good isn't it that we have such different views.

Jack Wrighton - 32:16
Yes, from the same source material and yet people's internal views that and that's so true because I think for a long time when people think of Poirot for instance I will think of David Suchet in it with a little moustache and yet there would have been a time where everyone had their own yes you know their own Poirot so Ruth has got that wonderful freedom to kind of still be individually cast in each reader's head.

Elly Griffiths - 32:41
Having said that if you're listening, Ruth Jones, you know I think you'd be great.

Jack Wrighton - 32:45
Yes yeah absolutely but it's always interesting speaking to authors who have, you know, created a kind of a beloved character that has endured over several books because, I don't know, it's almost like they have a mutual friend with their readers. You know, it creates such a particular, I think, author and readership dynamic in a way that's different to just kind of, you know, people who are fans of a particular author and the different books they've done. When there's that mutual character, I don't know, it feels sort of closer in some way. I don't know if that rings true from your side of things.

Elly Griffiths - 33:20
Yes, absolutely. And I think that's a really nice way of putting it. You do have a mutual friend. And in America, I met a lovely lady who had a bracelet on that said, "What would Ruth do?" and I did think, "Well, I don't know." Who knows? Who knows what Ruth... But I mean, that was so nice that in moments where she was actually a principal of a school, were moments of sort of worry. She thought well what would Ruth do? And I felt in some ways I thought I don't know what Ruth would do, but I thought was wonderful that this fictional character might help her with her everyday decision making. I thought that was great.

Jack Wrighton - 33:54
That is yeah that's really playing an important role in their lives and as an author you know do you find even with when you're writing The Last Remains do you find that Ruth still surprises you because as you say there you were like I don't know what Ruth would do you know even into the last pages were you finding that Ruth yeah is surprising you in different ways?

Elly Griffiths - 34:17
Yeah even as I was writing those last pages I wasn't quite sure how I was going to end it because Ruth has kind of you know ruined my plans a few times you know I've had plans for her at several points in the series and I could have ended it several points in the series but Ruth just wouldn't do what I had planned for her to do so yes I know I know it sounds a bit sort of pretentious, oh the character doesn't make the decision but sometimes they do and sometimes I suppose it's all to do with you as the author of course but I couldn't make myself write what I'd wanted to write earlier on so right to the end Ruth was kind of resisting me but I think we came to a conclusion that we're both happy with.

Jack Wrighton - 34:55
Good that's good, you've edited it on good terms. Yeah it's very good and yes it's interesting yeah because I can see what you mean there that it could sort of sound pretentious to sort of be like oh well the characters they're in person now but of course I think it's interesting there definitely does seem to be a sort of a… I don't know, a sort of subconscious element but you know there is room for surprise there I do you know it feels like speaking to different authors that they're not just bluffing when they say something like that that it is based in truth.

Elly Griffiths - 35:25
The one thing I have learned really is if you think oh what if that happened you should write that I mean even if it doesn't make the final draft you should maybe go down that path because, as you say, maybe it's the subconscious suggesting something to you. But I remember, I think it was the third book, which is called The House at Sea's End, Kathbad, who's the druid character, did something which wasn't planned at all and I remember when I was writing it thinking, "Oh, should I just not let him do that?" And then I thought, "Well, maybe I should just go down that path with him." and it did change the direction of the series in a way, but I'm glad I did it. So I think sometimes there is a bit of a prompting from your subconscious saying, "Well, maybe you should just... Maybe you should just do that." do that.

Jack Wrighton - 36:03
And of course if it went completely the way that you had planned, you know, you as the writer you might sort of get bored of it after a while. You know having those surprises is probably important for you as well.

Elly Griffiths - 36:14
Yeah I'm not a complete planner, I do plan a little bit, but I do like to be surprised and I think that has kept it fresh for me and now I think from about sort of five books ago, Stranger Diaries, my first standalone, I didn't write down anything. I had a plot sort of in my head but I didn't write it down and that allowed me to be a bit more fluid and to change things to be a bit more labyrinthine so I've kept that, I've kept that sort of element of things being fluid and able to separate so I think that has kept things fresh for me you know in my head.

Jack Wrighton - 36:43
Yes, absolutely, yeah I can imagine if you even if you'd written down sort of bullet points they can sort of stare at you from the page going well you said you'd do this why are you not doing that?

Elly Griffiths - 36:51
Yes and it can become a bit linear can't it this happens and then that happens and that happens but actually it's quite nice to mix things up a little bit.

Jack Wrighton - 37:00
And in terms of your life now do you have a particular space for writing? Do you because you said you're down Sussex Way did you say? That's where you're based these days.

Elly Griffiths - 37:10
I live just outside Brighton yeah so I'm speaking to you from my writing shed which is in my garden which I've always wanted a writing shed and I had it about sort of five years ago and my husband always says you shouldn't call it a shed because it's nicer than that but it sounds very Margot Ledbetter for the older listeners to say my writing studio or my gazebo because it's basically a shed but it's at the top of the garden it's got a desk and a chair and another chair for my cat and some bookshelves and I can see the sea out of the window and see the garden so it's a very it's for me it's been great to have a different place to go to write even if it's just to the top of the garden which is where I am now. You leave the house you go to the top of the garden you enter into the little writing space so yes that's where I'm writing, I'm talking to you at the moment.

Jack Wrighton - 37:50
And you can see the sea I'm very envious of that in landlocked Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

Elly Griffiths - 37:53
Well there's a lovely sea view from the house from the garden it's just a tiny little sliver of sea but it's cool there.

Jack Wrighton - 38:12
Oh how lovely, yes it's very interesting seeing as an admittedly nosey person, doing these interviews. The great thing is for the listeners out there we do have a video of each other and you can see that I'm also currently in a shed which is the shop office which is built in our little courtyard so we're both talking from various different sheds.

Elly Griffiths - 38:34
Have you got one of those lovely stable doors behind you?

Jack Wrighton - 38:38
We do, although it is a slight pain sometimes you slam it and then the other one opens out on you. so you can… I've been sort of buffed in the face sometimes by trying to close the door. But yes as a nosy person I've got to see sort of different writers' spaces and yes one that sticks out to me was a writing barge on a river yes which I was like oh that's very snazzy.

Elly Griffiths - 39:02
Wow that's really lovely so I remember talking to Mary Paulson-Ellis and almost not being able able to concentrate on the conversation because her room is such a lovely blue. I kept saying, "Your walls are so lovely, Mary!" She's great, but she probably wanted to talk a bit more about her books than how lovely the walls were.

Jack Wrighton - 39:21
You're like, "What's the Pantone colour of that wall?"

Elly Griffiths - 39:23
Yeah, I did ask!

Jack Wrighton - 39:25
It's an important question and one thing I wanted to ask earlier actually is, of course, you mentioned that, you know, you wrote that first book when you were 11, that first story, then you were working in publishing for a while, was that desire to write, was that consistent or did it sort of for a while kind of disappear and then when was it that you were like no actually I'm going to sit down and really give this a go?

Elly Griffiths - 39:51
That's a really good question because yes I always wanted to write really all through school I read English at universities, still wrote the old thing, nothing ever published but really keen and then when I went to work in publishing it did go a little bit because I suppose you're involved in the world, in the writing world, from a different point of view and you're editing and that's a different skill. So it really wasn't until I was on maternity leave, and I think I was saying earlier I've got twins who are 24, so it was 25 years ago and I was on maternity leave and that gave me a little time, not that much time away from the office and I thought actually what I really want to do is write a book and not necessarily edit it but write a book. So I started a book then and it wasn't published until the twins were about four, it wasn't finished until they were about four, but it was my first published book and it was written under my real name which is Domenica De Rosa, which I know sounds made up but is in fact my real name, and it was called The Italian Quarter and it was sort of based on my dad's life as an Italian immigrant in London before the war. So that was my first published book and I would never have written it if I hadn't been on maternity leave I think.

Jack Wrighton - 40:58
Yes, yeah, that seems to be a common thing with writers is that kind of moment where they realised it's sort of now or never and then once they do it the first time it feels like everything feels like it's more manageable to do.

Elly Griffiths - 41:12
And it does take a bit of time, right? It's one of the few things where you can be a new young writer at 40, can't you? A young thing.

Jack Wrighton - 41:18
Yes, yeah, well, I mean, you know, writing is, I don't know, it's such a measured thing, yes, is the nice thing is unlike other industry. I don't know, I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but in music or something, there tends to be a certain sort of age bracket of where people will sort of become known. But actually writing is, you know, people can be writing from, you know, sort of 19 or having their first book coming out, you know, much later, which I think is one of the kind of more exciting things about it because there's more voices there.

Elly Griffiths - 41:48
And you don't get many writing prodigies, do you? Of course you do get some, but you don't get like, you know, you have these wonderful music prodigies at sort of 12 or something but most people, I mean clearly I was one with my lovely 11-year-old book, but I wasn't, this is the whole point of it, you know, I wasn't anywhere near publishable at that age but actually for most people it takes quite a long time and quite a lot of life experience doesn't it to write a book.

Jack Wrighton - 42:17
Absolutely yes because I think the moment you're sort of giving life to people, you know different characters, you can't have the characters sort of being all the same age unless you're doing a kind of lord of the flies sort of scenario where you do for some reason yeah.

Elly Griffiths - 42:30
That's true another children's book I loved was Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown I think she wrote that when she was 15 and it's really quite extraordinary to think she did but it is quite rare.

Jack Wrighton - 42:40
Yes we don't want too many of those because it makes everyone else feel bad so I think…

Elly Griffiths - 42:46
It's good that you could be a young thing for quite a long time yes yeah.

Jack Wrighton - 42:49
Absolutely yes and as you said about the name i imagine you get that quite a lot that Elly Griffiths sounds like the sort of the real name as it were and then your real name sounds like the pseudonym yeah that must be something that gets quite frustrating because you're like no this is a part of who I am, this is my name.

Elly Griffiths - 43:07
It is, isn't it, because yes if you if you see Dominica De Rosa and Elly Griffith's you do assume that the Dominica De Rosa one is made up but it is in fact my real name, my family were Italian, it means 'someday of the rose' which is rather lovely and actually I think having a name like that was one of the things that made me want to be a writer because I did imagine it on book covers and thought it sounded very writer-y and I still think it does but the thing was that my first four books as Domenica de Rosa were kind of romances, kind of women's fiction maybe you might say, and so when I wrote a crime novel my then agent said or you need a crime name and I picked Elly Griffiths because my grandmother had been Ellen Griffiths and I thought it sounded quite crimey and I thought she'd quite like her name on a book but I didn't spend a huge amount of time thinking about it and also thought that maybe if I was lucky enough to be published again it would be as Domenica de Rosa so I would not have assumed there would be now I think 28 Elly Griffiths books so I would never have assumed to be her for so long.

Jack Wrighton - 44:05
Yes you're like who's this Elly Griffiths person she's doing so well but yes it's um it's interesting isn't it the whole thing that you know if you've started in one area if you make a change which of course I think many authors want to do there's this expectation well you know that name is now associated with this so you need a kind of new name but is that quite freeing for you that first initial writing under a different name did it sort of make you feel like, oh I can leave sort of Dominica behind and and try something else?

Elly Griffiths - 44:37
A little bit, yes, I think a little bit and it is quite helpful, isn't it, to think of yourself in a different persona when you're writing, especially when you're publicising books. So, yeah, that did help a little bit and names are important, aren't they? I've changed a character's name in a book and found that they seem a totally different person. So, I do think maybe it did help. It did help to embrace a new genre under a new name, really. Sometimes I just wish I'd stayed with Domenica De Rosa because you know very proud of being Italian and perhaps I’ve lost that with Elly Griffiths but it is a family name at least was my grandmother's name and she was Welsh and I'm proud of that too so yeah I'm glad I've got a family name.

Jack Wrighton - 45:15
Yes yeah absolutely and going back into the bookshop for a moment as well and I'll ask you to recommend another book, is a sort of an all-time favourite book a book that maybe you've gone back to several times or even if you've only read once sort of really kind of looms large in your imagination, what book would you be pulling off the shelf and handing over?

Elly Griffiths - 45:35
I would be pulling off the shelf and really being quite insistent that somebody reads Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, an absolute all-time favourite of mine. A nice slim volume would easily fit into your bag, perfect to read on a flight, but just a tremendous book from beginning to end and it's really what happens when a rational woman comes face to face with Gothic melodrama because Cold Comfort Farm and all the characters in it, it's about a woman called Flora Post who is orphaned and goes to live with her family. She goes to live with Aunt Ada Doom, who lives in Cold Comfort Farm in Howling in Sussex and really everyone in Cold Comfort Farm, which is this monstrous, dark, brooding building, are characters from a Gothic melodrama or a crime novel and they're all set to do sort of terrible things and Aunt Ada saw something nasty in the woodshed and there's a religious maniac who belongs to the Church of the Quivering Brethren. But because Flora is so rational and sensible, she just sorts them all out. She opens the windows, she washes the curtains, she lets the bull out in the field, and eventually she sends the religious maniac off on a tour of America. She sends the local sex pest off to Hollywood, she gets Aunt Ada out of her attic, and she just restores order. So, I would recommend anyone, it's written in the 1930s is as fresh today as it was then so Cold Comfort Farm if you haven't read it.

Jack Wrighton - 46:57
Oh my partner's going to be very annoyed because he loves that book and he read it a year or so ago and has just been raving about it since and keeps trying to get me to read it but now I think I'm gonna have to say yes I will read it now but because Elly Griffiths recommended it on the podcast.

Elly Griffiths - 47:08
You have to listen to him!

Jack Wrighton - 47:12
Well I've been talking about this for months!

Elly Griffiths - 47:14
Yes yes but it's clearly got very good taste.

Jack Wrighton - 47:18
Yes, yeah, absolutely. And yes, that's something that you both sort of aligned to, is that freshness that is still there, despite, you know, despite it having been written in the 30s.

Elly Griffiths - 47:27
It's just extraordinary, but we're in the 30s and set in sort of vague future as well, where they have such amazing things as telephones that you can see people's faces, which is quite incredible that she saw into the future really. So it's sort of set in a vague future time, but it is just so fresh and one of the things I love is that she puts asterisks beside she says I'm going to put asterisks beside the best writing and then she says so you could skip those bits.

Jack Wrighton - 47:54
Oh fantastic yes so you can just yeah skip to the good parts.

Elly Griffiths - 47:58
Yes so when I'm writing I always think to myself don't write a passage that you could put an asterisk beside that somebody could skip so it's quite useful to have that in your head.

Jack Wrighton - 48:06
I was just about to say yeah that's quite a good thing to think am I writing an asterisk passage right now to be moved on from and yes of course great humour in that book as well from what you've said.

Elly Griffiths - 48:17
It's just very funny, you really you will laugh out loud and there's so many bits that are just, there's a wonderful bit where Seth who thinks he's sort of the local womaniser tries to flirt with Flora and he has this long description of his sort of dark desires and how he likes rollicking off in the woods and he says to her 'I don't think you understand a word of what I've said you little innocent' and she says 'oh I'm afraid I wasn't listening to all of it' and you just... so clever.

Jack Wrighton - 48:44
Yes it sounds like well I'll be definitely taking that one as well yeah you'd make a very good bookseller.

Elly Griffiths - 48:51
Thank you I've enjoyed doing virtual book selling yeah it's very consistent follow you can't follow people around saying oh you must read it you must!

Jack Wrighton - 49:00
Yeah I mean that's the thing about a physical book shop you really can just sort of shove books into people's hands and you know people are usually very open-minded they'll accept and you know and try something new as well.

Elly Griffiths - 49:10
And it must be lovely when they come back and tell you that they've enjoyed it that must be really satisfying.

Jack Wrighton - 49:15
Oh it's usually that's the kind of the best part of the job is when people come back and then start racking your brains even more, of course, the difficult thing sometimes is they come in they say well I've read that now so what next you think oh goodness you know suddenly you're finding yourself having to find their next best read which is a quite a pressure to have on you sometimes because you know you want to deliver. Well we've talked about those books that have inspired you that you've enjoyed throughout your life and it's now time to turn that energy to The Last Remains. Now I have to ask you to do something now which I do think is quite cruel of me but is to if you were in a bookshop scenario again and you were handing over that book to someone, is how would you describe it to them? What would you say about The Last Remains in this imaginary bookshop scenario?

Elly Griffiths - 50:03
Well I'd say it's the 15th book in the Dr Ruth Galloway series but you can read it if you even if you haven't read any of the others. It's about a forensic archaeologist called Dr Ruth Galloway. She's called in when bones are found behind the wall of a cafe in Kingsland, the town where she lives in Norfolk. She knows immediately that the bones are modern and they're in fact the remains of a Cambridge student who went missing 20 years ago. But Ruth's drawn into the case, it's a very personal one for her because it's a college where she used to teach and because the dead girl was a good friend of Ruth's good friend, the Druid Kathbad. So it's a book full of decisions for Ruth, not least about the case but also about her job and about her relationship with DCI Harry Nelson.

Jack Wrighton - 50:44
And of course, with Ruth's particular sort of expertise that must have been quite an interesting journey for you in terms of I don't know the research required there and the people that you've spoken to I imagine that's brought you into contact with some really interesting real-life characters in order to you know nail the part of those books down.

Elly Griffiths - 51:05
Yeah definitely my husband's an archaeologist, which is pretty helpful, I have to say. But he's also introduced me to lots of other archaeologists who've been super helpful, particularly one called Lindsay Harvey, who's a bones expert, and that's Ruth's expertise. So, yes, I mean, the wonderful thing archaeologists can tell you, like they can read the landscape. Something that I heard once, it's always stuck with me, is that if you see nettles in a landscape, it could be a dead body because nettles only grow but as human remains, it could just be because someone's gone to the garden and had a wee but it could be there's a dead body there so just look at the nettles in your garden and it could be a dead body so it's so interesting all the things that I've learned I'm by no means an expert but I think sometimes it helps not to be an expert but just to be endlessly fascinated by the bits that you pick up along the way.

Jack Wrighton - 51:51
Absolutely and I'm never going to do a nature walk again with the same view every time i see nettles I'll be…

Elly Griffiths - 51:58
And also sometimes when you see fields from aerial views so interesting isn't it because you can see where there might have been houses and there might have been things there before so I must admit going on a walk with an archaeologist as I often do is a very interesting thing to do.

Jack Wrighton - 52:14
Yes absolutely, sort of unlocking the secrets of the landscape and of course the nice thing is that for some people this will be the end of the road at least for now of their relationship with Ruth but of course some people you know out there may actually only be discovering Ruth for the first time and that's the wonderful thing with these characters you know that sense that there's no time limit on them I don't know it's very different to a tv series maybe yes you can pick up a DVD but it's not quite the same thing.

Elly Griffiths - 52:42
That's so true because yes there are 15 books in the series so if you haven't read them you can start at book one and you've got 15 books to go but also I don't know about you but I'm a big re-reader so you can always go back to the beginning and re-read them and they'll always be there and the story will always be there so I think that's one of the wonderful things about books you can always just go back to the beginning.

Jack Wrighton - 53:00
Absolutely, yeah and there's always things that you didn't notice that first time you can have a set idea of a character by the end of a series but actually going back you can sort of rediscover things about them that maybe you've forgotten on the way.

Elly Griffiths - 53:15
Yeah and particularly with a crime novel don't you think because sometimes when you're reading a crime novel you read it very quickly to find out who did it and that's great but then sometimes you can just read back and then find other things in it, in the relationships and in the place. So I quite often read crime novels very quickly the first time and then go back almost immediately and start to read again.

Jack Wrighton - 53:36
And go into more depth. I'm so sorry Elly, I've just realised the time and I'm aware that soon will unfortunately have to wrap up this wonderful conversation but I could be talking all day about books. That's the only problem with this. I would ask you if you wouldn't mind to give us a reading from The Last Remains if you would.

Elly Griffiths - 53:55
Okay absolutely delighted to. I'm going to dive straight in and this is the beginning of chapter 13. Ruth is visiting a Neolithic flint mine, I'm just going to read from the very beginning of it. "Welcome to Grimes Graves," says the English Heritage sign, next to a less welcoming notice saying that it is closed to visitors. Ruth, driving through the gates, can see nothing but a long road with trees on either side. She remembers the site being a huge field, though it's surrounded by Thetford Forest, but suddenly the sky opens up and she's driving through a wide space of sun-bleached grass. It reminds her of the ghost fields, the abandoned air bases scattered throughout Norfolk, now mostly converted into farms but retaining some of the vastness and menace of her original use. There's a small hut in the middle of the field with two cars parked outside. Ruth has seen plenty of aerial photos of Grimes' graves, the eerie lunar landscape pockmarked with craters like the surface of a golf ball. At ground level it's hard to see the undulations but Ruth knows they're there. Over 400 of them she seems to remember. Each depression marks a mine shaft long since filled in. Ruth thinks of The Wood Between the Worlds and The Magician's Nephew, a book she once read to Kate. Each pool in the wood led to different world but there are so many and they're all the same. It's possible to get lost in the in-between place forever. Ruth had found the concept terrifying at the time. Kate had found it funny. Two men are sitting at a picnic table outside the building which looks less like an exhibition centre and more like the shed Phil has recently installed in his garden for his writing. Ruth recognized Leo Ballard by his wild grey hair. He waves as she approaches. “Well met!” Oh god is she going to have to talk in cod shakespearean all morning? Just a little bit from the last remains.

Jack Wrighton - 55:48
Fantastic reading and imagine having a shed for writing.

Elly Griffiths - 55:51
I know, I know what a pretentious thing to do.

Jack Wrighton - 55:55
How ridiculous. Well the Last Remains is now out, it's available in the mostly bookshop as well as on our website but it will also be available from your local independent bookshop or from wherever you decide to get your books. Elly, thank you so much for joining us on Mostly Books Meets.

Elly Griffiths - 56:13
Thank you, I've really enjoyed it.

Jack Wrighton - 56:15
Our absolute pleasure, thank you so much. Thank you. Mostly Books Meets is presented and produced by the bookselling team at Mostly Books, an award-winning bookshop located in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. All of the titles mentioned in this episode are available through our shop or your preferred local independent. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our previous guests which includes some of the most exciting voices in the world of books. Thanks for listening and happy reading.