The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

The Crossing Places is the first book that features forensic archaeologist, Ruth Galloway, in Elly Griffiths' series of murder mysteries set in Norfolk. Ruth works at the local university and has a particular interest in the henge circle that was discovered near her isolated home right on the marshes. This is a landscape where sea and land meet and according to the religion of the ancient people who built the henge it is also the path between life and death. A perfect spot for burial rites and human sacrifice then.
    When a child's bones are discovered on the marshes, Inspector Harry Nelson requests Ruth's help to date them. It is obviously not a new death, and Nelson hopes to solve a ten-year-old murder, that of Lucy Downey, a little girl taken from her bed in middle of the night. It is the case that haunts Nelson the most, possibly because of the letters that the murderer has sent him over the years, full of references to literature, archaeology and the Bible.
    The bones turn out to be around two thousand years old, and at the burial site are Iron Age artefacts, which is great for Ruth and her archaeologist friends, including her old teacher and mentor, the Norwegian Erik Anderssen. There will be more for Ruth and co to get their teeth into, more finds including an ancient pathway, giving plenty of scope for Griffiths to describe the customs and beliefs of the early people who lived here.
    Ruth sees her job as something akin to detective work, but when another little girl goes missing from her home and more letters arrive with references to ancient burials and the marshes, she is soon involved in a modern day crime. Inspector Nelson with his brusque north of England manner and Ruth with the confidence that comes from her academic expertise are an incongruous pair. Rather overweight and dressed for practicalities as opposed to style, Ruth is the world away from the kind of woman Nelson is used to, but the two make a connection.
    The reader suspects this will be the first of many crimes they will solve together and it is fortunate the two soon develop a grudging respect for each other. Plot-wise there aren't so many surprises but I enjoyed this fairly light and easy read, and I like the main characters, Ruth with her cats and solitariness and Nelson with his bad-tempered impatience but undoubtable integrity.
    Best of all is the setting: what is it about the Norfolk marshes that is so appealing? Possibly it is the danger of the rushing tide that threatens to swallow up anyone caught off the narrow paths of safety. There are shades of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone here, which just adds to the chilling atmosphere and creates a reliably escapist novel.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller’s Orange Prize winning novel is both a love story and a war story. And whoever said 'all's fair in love and war' couldn't have come up with a better story to illustrate the point, complicated as it is by the hand of fate and the capriciousness of the gods.
    While this is definitely the story of Achilles - immortalised by Homer as the greatest Greek warrior of his day and a key figure in the war the Greeks waged on Troy - the story is told from the point of view of Patroclus and includes a fascinating retelling of the lengthy siege the Greeks inflicted on Troy.

    You will remember it all began when Helen was abducted by Paris; she was his prize for choosing Aphrodite in a beauty contest. Helen was the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’ as well we know, and they were Greek warships brought from numerous Greek kingdoms, all converging on Troy to regain not only Helen for her husband Menelaus, but to defend Greek honour and teach the Trojans a lesson.
    At first I had to get over my recollections of the movie Troy which cast Brad Pitt as Achilles - an alpha male Holywood idol kind of Achilles. Miller’s Achilles is not like that. With the goddess, Thetis, for a mother, this hero has amazing fighting skills that always find their mark. But he's also sensitive and musical and his unusual golden hair and green eyes give him an ethereal beauty. She takes us back to Achilles' youth and the development of his love for Patroclus, his boyhood friend and lover, which plays an important part in his fate at Troy.

    Patroclus has had a difficult start in life. He is a disappointment to his father and when he accidentally kills another boy, is exiled to Phthia where its king, Peleus, fosters a number of boys, one of whom will eventually be chosen as companion for his son, Achilles. Surprisingly to everyone, Achilles chooses Patroclus. When Patroclus joins Achilles for lessons with the centaur Chiron, he begins to get over his inferiority complex and develops skills of his own.
    The two become inseparable, but when the war on Troy is declared, Achilles, in spite of Thetis' efforts to hide him, must muster an army from Phthia and join the fleet. Patroclus of course goes with him. Achilles lives under the curse of all that makes him great and his fate, as written by the gods, cannot be avoided.
    Miller is a classical scholar and has done her research to make this so much more than a sword and sandals drama. The relationship Patroclus has with Achilles is tender and makes the story poignant and real. She does wonders showing how the efforts of man to create his own destiny are in constant battle with the whims of the gods, which may have seemed strained and artificial in less skilled hands. The power play that develops between Achilles and Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, who is proud and cruel, makes the story hum along.
    You can see the lasting appeal of these classical stories written so long ago by Homer and others such as Virgil and Aeschylus. There is plenty of fodder here for some more classical adaptations - the genial but wily Odysseus, for instance, would make a terrific subject for another book, to say nothing of what happens next to the family of Agamemnon.
    In the acknowledgements, Miller states that this novel has been a work in progress for ten years. I sincerely hope that she has learned to speed up the process, because I would love to see some more of these stories brought to life as she has so vividly with The Song of Achilles. This is a haunting story that will stay with this reader for a long time.