"Originally published as The Locked Room in Great Britain in 2022 by Quercus."--T.p. verso.

"Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor -- until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that<U+2019>s looming ever closer, in USA Today Elly Griffiths<U+2019> penultimate novel in the beloved series. Three years after her mother<U+2019>s death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage -- before she lived there -- with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cottage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk<U+2019>s first cases of Covid-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance. Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth<U+2019>s isolated cottage -- until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it<U+2019>s too late."--Publisher.

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