Engrossing story full of believable characters and events in 1950s England. I enjoyed reading this book immensely. It has many red herrings and plausible suspects.
Perfect for amateur sleuths.

Inspector Frank Grasby has been seconded to a Yorkshire Village called Elderby .
Franks’s time in Elderby isn’t as quiet as he thought it would be it starts with finding a body up a chimney and what follows certainly keeps him on his toes.
The book had a slow start but quickly picked up pace and it kept my interest throughout.
The writing has humour running through it and it makes for an enjoyable read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK.

I've been quite desperate to reach this one on my list - and it did not disappoint!

December 1952 and Inspector Frank Grasby has had a run of back luck in York, resulting in him being sent to Elderby in North Yorkshire on secondment. Life in the country comes as a bit of a shock to Frank but when a body is found up the chimney in local Holly House, he hope to get it solved quickly to enable him to repair his reputation and return to the city. However, things never really go as expected for the Inspector and when another body turns up and the snow blizzards prevent help from reaching Elderby, Frank begins to realise that whatever's going on could have far reaching consequences unless, of course, he can put a stop to it.

As an avid reader of this author's Kinloch series, I couldn't wait to read this one and it was well worth the wait. With a fabulous seasonal cover, it didn't take me long to become completely engrossed in the story, and I was gratified to see that Denzil Meyrick's sense of humour was still present in this one. I didn't see where it was going, but I did enjoy the journey and the twists and turns took me by surprise more than once. A thrilling and exciting read and a fabulous book for all lovers of a very different kind of mystery. I'm delighted to highly recommend this one and give it all five sparkling stars.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

I love the Kintyre books from Denzil Meyrick, so was interested to read something completely different from this author.
I wasn't disappointed and a slow starting story builds nicely to an action packed climax. The way the story is framed is unusual as well.
A very enjoyable read.

There is current trend towards cosy mysteries some of which are set in the golden era of detective fiction. This book ticks those boxes for me and I’m hooked.
Hapless Inspector Frank Grasby has been exiled from his home turf of York due to a major contretemps with the local bigwigs and some escaped horses. He’s hoping for a little quiet time in the out of the way Yorkshire village of Elderby; anything is better than Hull. Before Frank leaves he pays a visit to his clergyman father who continued to be unimpressed by his choice of career. In the early morning after another night of disappointing his father and quite a lot of alcohol with his father and a visiting friend, Frank takes to the road. His vehicle is an unreliable police pool car, all that’s available, just another example of his apparent ineptitude. It’s nearly Christmas but Frank relishes the idea of time away from his father.
Bumbling Frank meets a series of villagers some of whom are bordering on the eccentric and some remarkably normal. He hopes he can redeem himself but there’s rather a lot roiling under the surface and before you know it there is murder and general mayhem follows.
This is a cracking story and more than fulfils the brief of cosy mystery and is one I know I will return to again and again. The Yorkshire accents spring out of the page and the words ‘don’t make a backside of it’ from his boss will stay with me forever. Setting this at Christmas is inspired as like Die Hard it will become a Christmas tradition; I think Frank’s choice if vest might be string though.
We have a brand new hero hapless Frank. He’s an everyman with resources he isn’t aware of. I do hope this is only the first of his memories as I think he has a lot more to offer us.

I’m a big fan of Meyrick’s Daley series, so I was keen to read something completely different. He has an engaging style and is great at capturing characters and location. Murder at Holly House is set in the 1950’s, in Yorkshire and features a rather bumbling police officer, Inspector Grasby. He’s trying to improve his working reputation and is assigned to a case where a body is found in a chimney.

The location is remote, it’s snowing, there’s a sense of both comedy and mystery as he sets about his task. This is a light and cosy murder mystery with moments of humour as villagers are questioned and events unfold. It kept me reading and I think there’s potential fir more about Grasby. He’s likeable and warming. I did struggle to,I’ve on from the Daley series with accents and familiarity with characters and their quirks. But that’s my shortcoming, not the author. This is seasonal, enjoyable and well observed. .

I’m a big fan of Denzil Meyrick, I love his DI Daley books set in Kinloch and the very different ‘spin off’ books Tales from Kinloch, too. But Murder at Holly House is a different style altogether and a very different voice, I loved it!

Set in post war Britain, in the beginning of the new Queen’s reign, DI Frank Grasby hasn’t been covering himself with glory and is despatched to a village in the back end of nowhere to assist with some burglaries, and an inconvenient dead body at the home of Lord Damnish. Grasby’s last brush with the aristocracy didn’t end well - they are still looking for the horses - when he is effectively banished to the village in North Yorks.

It quickly becomes clear that not everything is as it seems and that this small village is hiding an awful lot of very big secrets. The village of Elderby has already attracted a number of interesting characters. Miss Daisy Dean from the US is studying criminology and seems to be attached to the local constabulary, where the servant suffers from narcolepsy. The Lord has displaces the previous Lord after some dodgy dealings and married the daughter to give himself, it appears, some rights to be called a Lord - he’s so clearly new money! The son, meanwhile, is a sworn enemy and not speaking to his sister, as a result. The local vicar seems to be a quivering wreck.

Dr Starr is a popular newcomer and GP in the village and her husband is a storyteller tolerated by the community’s single pub.

The murder of the body found in the chimney is only the start of an adventure like no other for our bold Inspector, or is it like no other? As the book unfolds, this ex soldier seems to have more of a backstory than his hapless appearance may suggest. His vicar father, whose approach to religion is interesting, and his fathers best friend, Mitch, all play a part in the unfolding story as well as the backdrop. Another body appears and only adds to the puzzle.

Grasby is unmarried, likes horses and gambling and is generally seen as feckless and likely to be back walking the beat if he’s not careful. Soon, he is being knocked out, strung up, becomes part of a conspiracy to hush things up, is attacked by his own side, befriends the Pretender to the aristocratic seat, lusts after and doesn’t quite trust Miss Dean and is finding it hard to follow the orders given to him, essentially to play this all down so as not to alarm the locals.

A very different voice telling a very different story here from Denzil Meyrick and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a bit of a romp through murder, spy stuff and general skullduggery but Old Winnie, who is very much in the descendants now, politically, will almost certainly have something for which to be grateful to young Grasby! There is clearly more to this character and I’m rather hoping he gets another run out, sometime soon!

I haven’t read any of the author’s books but I’m a fan of Golden Age crime. This is a standalone novel but there was an uncomfortable sense that it was part of a series and you were starting in the middle. Some of the characters were recognisable if you have lived in a village but I found quite a lot of the book was unrealistic. Maybe it would make a better film than novel.

I am a HUGE fan of this author's Jim Daley books, as well as his shorts from that world. I also rather enjoyed Terms of Restitution his other stand alone novel. But these are all set in Scotland in the present day. So, imagine my shock and delight when I found out that he was writing a book set in the past, in England... Well.. I just had to have a crack at that... And, you know what, I blooming loved it just as much.
So, we find ourselves in December 1952, in Holly House, the home of Lord Damnish, in the remote town of Elderby on the North York Moors. Where a dead stranger has just been found up a chimney. As you do I guess! No one in the family, or staff, admit to knowing who he is. Or why he is there. Or indeed how he came to be Dead. Up the chimney. A weird occurrence indeed methinks.
Enter Inspector Frank Grasby to investigate. He is a bit reluctant, but due to shenanigans involving horses in a previous case he worked on, he is a bit of a pariah and, desperate to restore his good name, he really doesn't have a choice. And besides which, there's a young American female assistant, DeeDee, who is not bad on the old eyes to keep his spirits up!
And so begins a rather nifty story, narrated for the main by Frank himself who comes across, despite his failings and misgivings, as being very personable, jocular fellow with a good way with words. He is both entertaining and informative as he begins his investigations in earnest. I especially liked the interaction with DeeDee and their landlady Mrs Gaunt.
The settings - time and location - both add colour and substance to the narrative. Especially with the addition of the claustrophobic wintry weather.
The story had me intrigued all the way through and I really loved the way that Frank's investigation unfolded. Twists and turns, secrets and lies, all wrapped up with a smidgen of dysfunctional behaviour thrown in for good measure.
All in all, whether this is your first book by this author, or you are already a fan, I would thoroughly recommend reading this. I am now looking forward to revisiting it when it is out in AudioBook.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

It’s 1952 and Inspector Frank Grasby has been sent in disgrace to work at a small North Yorkshire police station in a rural backwater, after a few too many mishaps in his previous post. In order to redeem himself Inspector Grasby is hoping for things to run smoothly in his new village job, but on his first trip to introduce himself to the local landowner he pulls out a body from a blocked chimney.

This is a well written, laugh out loud historical murder mystery which captures the times well. There are plenty of plot twists and lovely descriptions of the beautiful Yorkshire moors village covered in snow ( being from Yorkshire I loved this.) I did enjoy the characters in this book Inspector Grasby had me laughing out loud at points. Thank you for the opportunity to review this festive treat of a book.

Murder at Holly House is an enjoyable read. The characters are interesting and I love the setting.

I would definitely recommend it.
Thank-you at NetGalley and Transworld Publishers for this ARC

Being rather fond of Golden Age crime I settled down in a comfy armchair to read. Entertaining enough. Quite slow going and Frank Grasby is very annoying- sort of a Bertie Wooster clone but the humour is rather cliched.
As a result not as good as I had hoped. I am prepared to give the author's "normal" detective series a go and see if they are better. This was a bit predictable and also far fetched.. Would probably work well as a TV drama- BBC afternoon slot

Another fabulous read from Denzil. Great characters, good plot, kept me guessing all the way through. Really set the tone very well for the period , and as ever superbly written .

Denzil Meyrick has moved away from his DCI Daley series to write Murder at Holly House. I haven’t read any DCI Daley novels, so Meyrick is a new author for me. It’s one of those books where the author pretends that a bundle of papers has been passed into their keeping after the death of an elderly relative and that the papers are effectively published “as is”. I assume we’re supposed to believe this; and to thus accept the book as a true-life narrative and not fiction. However, the standard disclaimers before the book starts, “Denzil Meyrick has asserted his right to be identified as the author” and “This book is a work of fiction” belie that assumption. Why do they bother?!

I won’t summarise the plot because the publisher does that better than I can. Suffice it to say that the main character, Inspector Frank Grasby, has blotted his copybook once too often and he’s given one last chance to redeem himself. There is a great deal of humour in the book and the thought of a copper escorting a prisoner; giving him ten bob to buy the beers while the copper has a wee, during which interlude the prisoner scarpers (with the ten bob note, adding insult to injury) – that did make me snigger unbecomingly. Grasby also arrested a suspect who was a groom, allowing several racehorses to escape because the stable door was unbolted at the time. I found that one funny on so many levels.

I found the novel both unbelievably irritating and highly enjoyable in equal measures. Firstly, the fashionable tendency to write stories in the present tense: why? Are we supposed to imagine that the author is writing events down as they are being shot at or being knocked out – and that the perpetrator leaves the manuscript and pen with them, so they can recommence as soon as they wake up, even if they’re bound hand and foot? Is this meant to introduce tension, because we should be uncertain whether the narrator survives or not? If so, the author has a low opinion of our intelligence: do they really think we’re expecting to turn a page and to read “I’ve been shot.. I’m dying… Oops, I’m dead!”? Authors, listen to me, the technique cannot possibly add any value; it can only act as a distraction and thus detract from your book. Don’t do it!

Secondly, the main character, Inspector Frank Grasby, appears as a sympathetic character with whom we can identify and, therefore, we want to succeed. However, after the first four chapters, the author then depicts him as one of those ridiculous people who thinks X is great until they express a contrary opinion to our hero, who then disparages everything about them, their ancestry and their possessions. I know it’s meant to be amusing as we recognise the transparent hypocrisy, but I’m afraid it meant that I no longer cared what happened to the main character and was no longer invested in the plot. That was disappointing as I had thoroughly enjoyed the book until then. If I hadn’t promised to review the book, I think I would have abandoned it at that point.

However… The hypocrisy was eventually shed; the plot took several unexpected twists; and I became involved once more: to the extent that I refused to put the light out and go to sleep, insisting on continuing to read to the end because it was too exciting to put down. There are some nice historic touches that are in keeping with the period, e.g. the mentions of Winston Churchill in his second, 1950s, ministry, when he was undoubtedly an old man and perhaps struggling somewhat.

In summary, then, I’d give the book three stars - an average of five and one for the various sections. I will look out for the next in the series (as it appears to be Meyrick’s intention to write at least one sequel) and buy it, hoping that Grasby retains my sympathy throughout the book. If he does, I’ll be hooked on the series. If he reverts to being a hypocrite, we’ll part company at that point.

#MurderatHollyHouse #NetGalley

I was thoroughly absorbed in “Murder at Holly House”. Set in Yorkshire in the 1950’s our “hero” Inspector Grasby is sent to a sleepy village no one has ever heard of, to investigate a series of thefts. He is sent by way of a punishment for a previous job gone wrong, one that was heavily publicised and caused much tittering when people realised Grasby was “that” Inspector!

Grasby soon discovers that the sleepy village and many of the people who he meets are not at all what they seem. Mystery, murder, political intrigue and a great deal of farcical fun ensue.

The book in the main, is written in the first person narrated by the genial Inspector Grasby from his case notes. He writes it as a stream of consciousness with humour.

Grasby often seems to be taken as a fool, underestimated or treated as a scapegoat. I did feel sorry for him noting that he might come across as naive but he is not foolish. As I read I became quite fond of the character, rooting for him to catch the bad guys and make his dour father proud. The latter being the least likely of the two outcomes interesting and amusing thoughts about this relationship, form large parts of his narrative.

The book is an excellent read. Much like the village it is set in, all is not what it seems. It reminds me of Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence, unexpectedly gripping action with excellent characterisations. Denzil Meyrick’s writing style as Grasby is delightful and I hope to read more of Grasby’s escapades in future.

Set around Christmas 1952, this engaging novel centres around Inspector Frank Grasby and his (mis)adventures. There is definitely more than meets the eye to the allegedly quaint Yorkshire village… a dead body in a manor sets in motion a complicated series of events which are not what they seem.
The prose is engaging and light, with funny remarks offered by Frank’s first person narration. Rich in characterisation and descriptives, the novel delivers clever insight into the war and the times.
I have gratefully received an advance copy of this novel from NetGalley and the publisher (Transworld Digital) in exchange for an honest review.

A diversion from Meyrick’s usual setting, and all the more fun for the novelty - although I’m hoping this too will develop into a series as suggested. I thought it might be more of a Christmas caper than it turns out to be- it’s winter for sure, but not a ‘festive’ themed mystery. What it is is hugely gripping, with developments quickly escalating above a village murder and into something far grander and with more potential for impact. With a ‘trust nobody’ vibe, an entertaining cast of characters and a narration in the form of the memoirs of the lead copper, this is a great pacy thriller with a wintery setting. Love it.

I enjoyed getting to know Inspector Grasby and his bumbling mishaps are quite amusing at times, I loved the setting and the village scene and folks but I found the plot a bit slow and not to my taste. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this early copy.

I am afraid this turned out not to be my cup of tea at all.

I am an avid reader of Golden Age Detective Fiction and am always on the lookout for modern “takes” on the classic tropes. I was also interested in the period and setting of this novel as I was born in 1952 and, since my mother’s family was from Yorkshire,I spent a lot of time there.

However I found Inspector Frank Grasby entirely annoying and his behaviour grated on me. I worked out what was going on at a very early stage and reading on after about a third of the way through became a bit of a chore.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the digital review copy.

It’s December 1952 and, as punishment for a mishap too many in the line of duty, Inspector Frank Grasby is sent to the remote village of Elderly in the North York Moors. Barely has he had time to unpack his suitcase before the discovery of a body up the chimney of the local ‘big house’ sets him to work and he discovers that not everything in the village is as it seems.

The first thing to say is that this book was not what I expected. I went into it thinking it would be a cosy murder mystery set in a big old country house – but in fact it’s so much more than that. I don’t want to give too much away because the surprise is part of the fun but Meyrick has crafted a brilliantly plotted tale of conspiracy and lies, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing to the end.

The other thing I was pleasantly surprised by is how funny the book was. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion and every page seemed to have something that brought a smile to my face. Also, despite being set over 70 years ago, Meyrick manages to weave in some biting satire about the state of the country today which I really appreciated.

Another thing Meyrick does really well is characterisation – everyone in the book, no matter how minor or incidental, felt like a real believable person. With just a few well chosen words he manages to convey a real sense of exactly who that person is. For example, Grasby’s father is “tall, thin and grey – almost as though he is in the process of fading away”, whereas Grasby’s boss is a “true corporeal reality wrought in blood, bone, pipe tobacco and real ale”.

If you’re looking for an entertaining, well crafter and witty thriller, with a cosy country Christmas setting then I’d recommend seeking this out.