The Janus Stone

A gruesome discovery at an old children's home lays bare terrible secret's from Norwich's past in the second gripping mystery for Dr Ruth Galloway. 'The setting is enticingly atmospheric . . . a really intelligent murder story' Independent
Dr Ruth Galloway's forensic skills are called upon when builders, demolishing an old house in Norwich, uncover the bones of a child - minus the skull - beneath a doorway. Is it some ritual sacrifice or just plain straightforward murder? Ruth links up with DCI Harry Nelson to investigate. The house was once a children's home. Nelson traces the Catholic priest who used to run the place. He tells him that two children did go missing forty years before - a boy and a girl. They were never found. When carbon dating proves that the child's bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn ever more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer it becomes clear that someone is desperate to put her off the scent by frightening her to death...

Elly Griffiths is a multi-award-winning author and a No. 1 bestseller. She has written twenty-eight crime novels for adults; four for children, and a volume of short stories. Her books for adults include the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries, the Brighton Mysteries and the Detective Harbinder Kaur series, as well as The Frozen People and The Killing Time, the first two books in the Ali Dawson Mysteries. Elly's many accolades include the CWA Dagger in the Library, the Edgar Award, the Fingerprint Award for Crime Novel of the Year and the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award, as well as the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year Award. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband and their cat, Pip.