John Preston, The Dig (London: Penguin Books, 2008).
I don't really read novels these days, but I read this book simply because I heard it is based on a real story of people engaged in the excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. Nothing very exciting or dramatic happens in the story, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of a good old English rural life. I also have got the idea how the excavation was carried out.
Each chapter is written from a viewpoint of a different character. The names of the characters are real, so thanks to this book, I have remembered all the names of major figures related to the initial excavation of the site. I even looked them up in Wikipedia, where I have found that Peggy Piggott (Celia Margaret Piggott, 1912-1994) in this novel is better known by her second married name, Cecily Margaret Guido. In the novel, she is a young archeologist who took part in the excavation simply because her husband, in the middle of their honeymoon, was asked to take part in by Charles Philips, the director of the excavation, and because Philips thought that unlike himself, she was light enough not to damage the site. Yet I have found that she later became a reputed excavator and productive writer publishing many books and articles.
I have also found that her maiden name was Preston, the same as the family name of the author of this novel. And it was not a coincidence; the author is a nephew of Peggy Piggott. Yet it is said that the author was not aware of the story about the Sutton Hoo excavation until 2004, about ten years after his aunt's death. So the story is not based on the first-hand information from her.
By far the youngest character in the novel, Robert Pretty, who was raised by his aunt Elizabeth after his mother, Edith Pretty's death, passed away in 1988, much earlier than Peggy Piggott, and nobody appearing in the novel is alive now...
The Sutton Hoo Helmet at the British Museum, which I think is not mentioned in the novel.