TO HONOUR THE DEAD

DCI Jack Harris is the protagonist of John Dean’s new novel, To Honour the Dead. Dog-lover and hill walker, Harris has come north from the Greater Manchester police to join the Levton Bridge force in Yorkshire’s north Pennines, but he hasn’t left trouble behind him.

In the nearby village of Chapel Hill a failed attempt at burning down the local British Legion hall coupled with vandalism of its war memorial escalate to the murder of an elderly man, Harold Leach, who had been awarded the VC.  Jack Harris’s pursuit of obvious possible culprits leads him to a far wider crime scenario and gives Jack and his team a complex tangle of secrets to unravel – some of which lie within his own police force. The unravelling of the truth comes with a satisfying twist of the plot.

The author has twice been named North-East Freelance Journalist of the Year, and this well written enjoyable mystery is another tribute to his work.