"Grimm Up North" by David Gatward

DCI Harry Grimm tends to drive his superintendent with the Bristol police a bit crazy. He knows his stuff, her gets results, but a lot of people seemed to get beaten up in the process. It doesn’t help that he’s still looking for his father; 20 years before, the man violently abused Grimm’s younger brother and killed his mother. He was never caught. 

Grimm carries his military service in the parachute crops with him, courtesy of an unexpected explosive device that left his face permanently scarred. So scarred, in fact, that his appearance scares suspects, villains, and witnesses alike.

 

After an almost-bungled sting (Grimm came very close to it being his last operation), his superintendent packs him off to a small town in the Yorkshire Dales. Officially, he’s being loaned (or seconded) to the police force there. It’s Herriott country, he tells himself, and he knows he’ll soon be bored to tears. Except he’s hardly there any time at all when a local teenager disappears. Runaways aren’t that uncommon, of course, but this followed a major scene at church when the girl supposedly received a text from her boyfriend.

 

It may be Herriott country, and you may have to navigate the sheep herds in the lanes, but crime doesn’t take a holiday in the Dales. A murder follows the girl’s disappearance, and now it’s all hands on deck before it gets worse.

 

David Gatward

Grimm Up North is the first of 15 published novels (and one upcoming one) in the DCI Harry Grimm series by British writer David Gatward. It’s a fast-paced read with an unusual hero and leavened with just the right amount of humor. I read the book as a trial, unsure whether I’d like it nor not, and I liked it so much that I immediately ordered the second, Best Served Cold. 

 

In addition to the DCI Harry Grimm series, Gatward has published children’s and teen fiction, taught creative writing sessions, worked as an editor, started a small publishing firm, and returned to writing when the COVID pandemic arrived. He grew up in the Cotswolds and Yorkshire in England (including the town for the setting of Grimm Up North), and he’s also lived in Lincolnshire and the Lake District.

 

It's always an unexpected pleasure to discover a new mystery series, and if the first is any indication, I will be kept busy and entertained with the next 15.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Halloween Revisited – Steven Wedgeworth at Ad Fontes.

 

Civil War Art: Fort Fisher Watercolors of John W. Grattan – Neil Chatelain at Emerging Civil War. 

 

Up the road – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Meeting the Masses – The Secret Author at The Critic Magazine.