"The Grim," by Donna Andrews, in Black Cat Weekly, #165.
This is Andrews' second appearance here.
What we have this week is a fantasy-detective story. Not the easiest mashup to make work, but I enjoyed it.
The narrator, nameless unless I missed it, is in charge of spooks in his area and a problem has come up, wouldn't you know it, in the busy season right before Halloween.
A few weeks ago I talked about world-building, and this is another example, although we might call this other-world-building, because we are discussing the rules of the afterlife. It turns out that the first body buried in a cemetery can't leave it. It becomes the Grim, a fierce black dog which guards the graves and helps new spirits to find their way to the underworld.
For this reason, the narrator explains, wise cemetery-managers bury a dog before they bury other humans. Because no person is likely to want the job of death-pooch.
In our story the problem is that the Grim at a new cemetery is clearly suffering from job dissatisfaction and is causing trouble. Our hero has to figure out the cause of Fido's dilemma and find a solution.
His work is satisfactory and so is the story.
