Elly Griffiths

Elly Griffiths is the pen name of British novelist Domenica de Rosa, who worked in publishing and wrote several novels under her own name before turning to crime fiction. She is best known for the Ruth Galloway series, sixteen novels following a forensic archaeologist based on the Norfolk coast, a character partly inspired by Griffiths's own husband, who left a city career to train as an archaeologist, and by an aunt who filled her head with local myths and legends. The series began with The Crossing Places (2009) and concluded its central story, resolving Ruth's long, complicated relationship with police detective Harry Nelson, with The Last Remains in 2023. Griffiths also writes two further series that share no characters with Ruth Galloway or each other: the Brighton Mysteries, a 1950s-set partnership between a police detective and a stage magician beginning with The Zig Zag Girl (2014), and a newer sequence following DS Harbinder Kaur, launched in 2018. All three showcase her strengths — a strong sense of place, warm character work, and puzzle-plotted mysteries that avoid the genre's grislier extremes. New readers should start with The Crossing Places for her most acclaimed series, though the Brighton Mysteries offer a lighter, more playful entry point. Griffiths continues to publish new novels most years.