It is turn-of-the-millennium Athens, and a new and very unconventional Greek detective is in the improbable process of creation.

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The grandson of an Orthodox priest and descendant of a tanking shipping firm which his younger sister will solely inherit, due to an odd family custom, Grigoris is an aimless, failed theology student- until a trip to Istanbul and the Ecumenical Patriarchate introduces him to people and places that change the course of his life and career.

Completely self-taught as a private investigator, ‘Detective Grigoris’ slowly but surely establishes himself in his new role, gathering insights from ascetic monks, eccentric journalists, military veterans and diplomats, among others. In comical fashion, Detective Grigoris often seems a step behind the action as he tries to interpret an increasingly complex and interwoven set of mysteries- the result of which leads to a stunning yet unwelcome revelation about the relationship between politics, business and international diplomacy.

The Setting

Relatively recent in time, but now almost forgotten since 9/11, turn-of-the-millennium in Greece, Turkey and the Balkans was an action-packed and volatile region at an indeterminate time, one noted for terrorist attacks, secret operations, stock-market plunges, security-related scandals, NATO’s Kosovo intervention, and the looming dread of technological apocalypse that many feared would accompany the clocks and computers in their countdown to the year 2000.

Against this forgotten historical context, a 23-year-old Greek emerges to eventually become the country’s ‘most famously obscure detective.’ The first collection of Detective Grigoris mysteries builds out the character, his family and acquaintances as recrring characters, in the process of covering six ‘cases’- though not necessarily the type that many readers of the detective-fiction genre might expect.

Indeed, everything from the typical tropes to plot schematics of the genre are turned on their head in these stories of action and intrigue; further, the experimental nature of Christopher Deliso’s research and writing are reflected in how these stories (in overt and covert forms alike) celebrate the greater literary and philosophical predecessors of the work within the genre.

Future Detective Grigoris Collections

In addition to the occasional ‘timeless’ and stand-alone mysteries, Christopher Deliso has been working since 2022 on several addition follow-on collections of Detective Grigoris Mysteries.

The first two anticipated collections of cases and mysteries follow a chronological course, with the Greek detective taking part in cases in several countries in Greece’s near-abroad as he solidifies his reputation and escapes deadly situations. In the other, following collections, set in the more established period of the detective’s career (in the early 2020’s), the action centers around cases affecting the family shipping business, drawing a full circle around the larger enigmas. known and unknown, about the historic company and the family’s hidden enemies.