“Hallo, Clare. You don’t know me.” Clare Cassidy finds these words in her own diary, written in someone else’s hand, after her friend and colleague is found murdered. Elly Griffiths published this gothic mystery with Quercus in the UK in November 2018. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt brought it out in the US in March 2019, and it won the 2020 Edgar Award for Best Novel. It is book 1 of the Harbinder Kaur mysteries, the first in a series of four, although Griffiths wrote it as a stand-alone novel.
What Is The Stranger Diaries About?
Clare is a divorced high school English teacher at Talgarth High, a school in West Sussex. Part of the school was once the home of R.M. Holland, a Victorian gothic writer whose ghost story, “The Stranger”, Clare teaches every year. She is also writing his biography, and in the evenings she runs a creative writing course for adults.
Then her colleague and friend Ella Elphick is found dead. At the scene of the crime the police find a note with a line that also appears in “The Stranger”. DS Harbinder Kaur, who was once a pupil at Talgarth, starts investigating the murder. She soon finds that the people at the school have plenty to hide, and Clare is not telling her everything either. When she finds that someone else is writing in her diary, the danger moves into her own home.
Clare, Georgie and DS Kaur: Three Points of View
Three characters narrate the story in turns, each in the first person:
- Clare, the teacher, who has kept a diary since she was a teenager and quotes from it;
- Georgie, Clare’s teenage daughter, 15, a pupil at Talgarth who writes in secret and posts her stories online;
- Harbinder, the detective sergeant on the case: gay, Sikh, still living with her parents, and with a dry view of the adults she interviews.
Rick, the head of the English department, has secrets of his own. Bryony Hughes teaches at the nearby private school, runs Georgie’s writing group and is rumored to be a white witch. DS Kaur and her partner Neil Winston do the legwork. Clare’s dog, Herbert, is almost a character too. Then there is Holland’s wife, Alice, whose ghost is said to haunt the old building.
Our Review: A Spooky School Story With a Sharp Detective
The best idea in the book is the school itself. Griffiths sets a Victorian ghost story in an ordinary secondary school, and she has said she chose it to put the gothic somewhere very everyday. Passages of “The Stranger” are interspersed throughout the novel, and the full short story is printed at the end. Kirkus saw an homage to M.R. James in it, and Publishers Weekly pointed to Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, where diaries also tell the story.
Harbinder steals every scene she is in. The Guardian called her an enjoyably sharp detective, and her dry asides about the teachers are the funniest lines in the book. The weak point is the ending. Publishers Weekly warned that some readers may find the resolution disappointing, and Kirkus found the many ingredients a little unwieldy. We agree that the solution is less memorable than the setup. If you enjoyed Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders, this crime novel will suit you. It sits closer to a literary thriller than to a gentle mystery.
Is The Stranger Diaries Part of a Series? The Harbinder Kaur Books
Yes, although Griffiths only decided to bring Harbinder back after she finished it. Her own website still lists it among her stand-alone books. The series now has four novels:
- The Stranger Diaries (2018): a murder at Talgarth High.
- The Postscript Murders (2020): three unlikely amateur sleuths investigate in Shoreham and Aberdeen, with DS Kaur.
- Bleeding Heart Yard (2022): Harbinder, now a detective inspector in London, shares the story with DS Cassie Fitzherbert.
- The Last Word (2024): a detective agency in Shoreham, with Harbinder giving advice from London.
Each book has a new case and can be read on its own, and the lead often changes. No fifth book has been announced as of October 2026.
Elly Griffiths’ Books in Order, Series by Series
- The Ruth Galloway series, 15 novels about a forensic archaeologist in Norfolk:
- The Crossing Places (2009)
- The Janus Stone (2010)
- The House at Sea’s End (2010)
- A Room Full of Bones (2012)
- Dying Fall (2013)
- The Outcast Dead (2014)
- The Ghost Fields (2015)
- The Woman in Blue (2016)
- The Chalk Pit (2017)
- The Dark Angel (2018)
- The Stone Circle (2019)
- The Lantern Men (2020)
- The Night Hawks (2021)
- The Locked Room (2022)
- The Last Remains (2023)
- The Brighton Mysteries, also called the Stephens and Mephisto books, seven novels (2014–2023):
- The Zig Zag Girl (2014)
- Smoke and Mirrors (2015)
- The Blood Card (2016)
- The Vanishing Box (2017)
- Now You See Them (2019)
- The Midnight Hour (2021)
- The Great Deceiver (2023)
- The four Harbinder books (2018–2024): see above.
- Ali Dawson Mysteries: The Frozen People (2025), The Killing Time (2026) and The Night Watchman (due February 2027).
- For children: the four A Girl Called Justice books (2019–2022).
Within each series, read the books in publication order. The series do not depend on one another, so you can start with any of them.
Will There Be Any More Ruth Galloway Mysteries?
Not for now. The Last Remains (2023) was published as the final Ruth Galloway book, and no new novel has been announced. Griffiths has said she sees it as a break rather than a goodbye and might return to the characters after a few years. Her next books all belong to the Ali Dawson series.
Who Is Elly Griffiths?
Elly Griffiths is the pen name of Domenica de Rosa, who was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Brighton. She has an MA in Victorian literature and worked as an editor of children’s books before writing full time. Today she teaches creative writing at West Dean College. Talgarth High is partly based on her own old school in Hove, whose building was also said to be haunted. Like Clare, she has kept a diary since childhood.
Quick Facts
| Title | The Stranger Diaries |
|---|---|
| Author | Elly Griffiths |
| Series | Harbinder Kaur Mysteries, book 1 of 4 |
| First published | November 2018, Quercus (UK); March 2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US) |
| Setting | Talgarth High, a secondary school in Sussex |
| Sleuth | Harbinder, a detective sergeant, with teacher Clare |
| Audiobook | Unabridged, 10 h 32 min, read by Esther Wane, Sarah Feathers and Anjana Vasan, with Andrew Wincott reading “The Stranger” (Quercus 2018 / Recorded Books 2019) |
| Award | Edgar for Best Novel (2020) |
| Next book | The Postscript Murders |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Stranger Diaries a cozy mystery?
Not quite. It has a closed circle, an English school and a dog, but the mood is gothic and the danger is real. Griffiths herself calls the second book the more traditional cozy of the two.
Is “The Stranger” a real ghost story?
No. Griffiths wrote it for the novel and invented its author, R.M. Holland. It has nothing to do with Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger.
Do I need to read the Ruth Galloway books first?
No. The two series are separate, and The Stranger Diaries introduces all of its characters from scratch.
Where can I find gentler British mysteries?
Our British cozy mysteries page collects village and seaside series with less menace.