The Locked Room cover art

The Locked Room

The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries, Book 14

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Locked Room

By: Elly Griffiths
Narrated by: Jane McDowell
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are on the hunt for a murderer when COVID rears its ugly head. But can they find the killer despite lockdown?

Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: dawn, 1963.

Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then COVID rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.

Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.

Only then her name wasn't Zoe. It was Dawn.

©2022 Elly Griffiths (P)2022 Quercus Editions Limited Detective Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Murderer's Son cover art
A Long Time Dead cover art
Detective Sebastian Clifford, Books 1-3 cover art
The Body in the Marsh cover art
The Infirmary: A DCI Ryan Mystery (Multicast Drama) cover art
First Blood cover art
The Cat and the Corpse in the Old Barn cover art
The Murder Wall cover art
Detective Tom Janssen Hidden Norfolk, Books 1-3 cover art
The Snowdonia Killings cover art
Good Girls Don't Die cover art
The Body at Rookery Barn cover art
The Ruins cover art
A Vintage Friendship cover art
From the Corner of His Eye cover art
Missing cover art

Critic reviews

"Galloway now seems as real as Marple and Morse." (The Times)

"Set in divine North Norfolk. Intensely atmospheric and great." (India Knight)
All stars
Most relevant  
an interesting story set in the lockdown. a reminder of our collective problems during the period.

great update on. Ruth and co in lockdown

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A truly gripping story. All of Ella Griffiths books have had very good story lines to listen to and narration great, but this is the first time I’ve shed tears it was so good I didn’t want to loose any characters from the story.
You will have to read or listen to find out what happens.

First time a story has bought me to tears

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Another great Ruth Galloway story superbly narrated bu Ms McDowell. Hope it isn’t too long before Ruth, Nelson, Kate and Cathbert will be keeping me company again.

Great entertainment

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’ll start off by saying, I am a huge fan of this series by Elly Griffiths. As such, I couldn’t recommend it more to anyone who is also a fan and has read the other books.
However, if this happens to be the first book you are reading, you may find it disappointing. Without giving too much away, the perpetrator of the crimes is almost discovered in a straight « out of left field » manner, so as a murder mystery in and of itself, it could be better.
The drama of the characters’ lives however, more than makes up for this short-coming, but perhaps not if you have not encountered them before and are not already fond of them.
Beautifully read as ever by the wonderful Jane McDowell. I really am grateful for this continuity as I have had to stop listening to too many audiobook series I otherwise enjoyed, because the publishers have suddenly switched narrators.

Please read the other books in the series first

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Until now loved every book. This is all about COVID and fear, so if like me you've have a gut full of it, or COVID made you anxious, it will bring it all back. When it to those Many Many sections, I skipped forward, normally would have returned it, but as didn't want to miss Harry Ruth's romance progression, slogged on. Nothing to miss though.

Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Clever to interweave the advance of Covid with the main plot line. So many twists and turns and hints of future revelations. Made me homesick for Norwich. But how I wish the reader could do a convincing Norfolk accent.

Plagues and cloaks

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
really good listen, with excellent narrative, kept me interested all the way through. looking forward to the next in series.

tied the series together.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
love the story with Nelson and Ruth having time together. Ruth finding a sister that she never knew she had .

brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting to read a book covering a version of the recent pandemic encompassing an absorbing Ruth Galloway and Nelson case. The threads teased the listener as always, bringing it all to a conclusion, but yet again leaving us all hanging and longing for NEXT February when Ruth is back again with The Last Remains. I do hope it won’t be the last we see of Ruth, Kate Nelson and Casbad!

So good to be back in North Norfolk

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Having followed all the Ruth Galloway novels I found this one a bit of a disappointment the story line was good but the constant Covid references were way too much! We all had to endure it and to then have a story that was so interwoven with it was too much. I’m sure we would all rather forget that dreadful time. I buy books for entertainment and escapism not to be reminded of bad times. Please don’t use covid again we all went through it and don’t need reminding of how bad it was!

Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews