This is the sixth in a series set in Yorkshire, England and featuring Detective Chief Inspector Harry Grimm, 40. Harry has a fearsome countenance. His face was “crafted from wounds he’d sustained from an IED when he was in the Parachute Regiment, and then honed over the years into something just short of being hard and horrible enough to make a grown man shit himself.”

Twenty years ago, Harry found his mother dead and 10-year-old brother Ben devastated and unable to recover from it. Ben became dependent on drugs and was now in Bristol Prison. Harry has been looking for their abusive, murderous father ever since, and it is an obsession for him. It is also destroying him, in the words of his boss, Bristol Detective Superintendent Alice Firbank, who sends him to Yorkshire for “secondment.” She wants him to “do a bit of reevaluation, that kind of thing.”

Thus, Harry has now been working in “Herriot country.” (The dales are familiar to many as the setting for the television series, “All Creatures Great and Small,” which was based on the books by the Yorkshire vet, James Herriot. It had been filmed around Wensleydale and over in nearby Swaledale, and this is where Harry now headed a team he has gotten to like very well indeed.). Moreover, Ben has been released from prison and is now living with Harry.

Harry works with the surprisingly competent and affable PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) Jim Metcalfe, PCSO Liz Coates, Detective Sergeant Matt Dinsdale, and Detective Constable Jenny Blades.

In this installment, the team investigates the murder of a musician who had returned to Wensleydale, where he grew up, to perform a concert at the Askrigg Church. They are also still looking into the sheep rustling at Jim’s dad’s farm. Jim’s friend Neil had been involved, and he was murdered. Jim is deeply upset over Neil’s death in spite of the role he played in the theft. But the main focus is on the musician, Gareth Jones, and who might have wanted him dead.

Evaluation: The mystery is satisfyingly complex, and it is rewarding to get to know Harry and his team better. ( )