Book Review: A Grimm Sacrifice by Jeffrey Haskell

A GRIMM SACRIFICE is the fourth book in this series. I'm a huge fan of Jeffrey Haskell's GRIMM'S WAR series, which is one of the better space opera series I've been reading. Space opera is one of the best genres for indie fiction as it is the kind of wild genre that benefits from being unrestricted by traditional publishing. I am a huge fan of the Alexis Carew series by JA Sutherland, all of Glynn Stewart's writing, and a few other really good tales. I also write my own with Space Academy Dropouts and Lucifer's Star. This is, however, probably my favorite indie space opera series, though.

The premise of the series is that Jacob Grimm is a disgraced Alliance Naval officer who gets assigned to the butt end of space and ends up heroically saving the day multiple times against the EVIL Caliphate. (Note: While the Caliphate is pretty gross and awful, the book notably includes non-evil Muslim characters for those concerned). Unfortunately, the books do make the Caliphate run rings around anyone who isn't Jacob or his spy love interest, Nadia, so the Alliance is still losing against the slaving empire.

This book deals with the fact there's a secret conspiracy within the ranks of the Alliance's government to prevent them from entering into war with the Caliphate. They've captured the Caliph's son but have to deal with a peace movement that is determined to make economic inroads with the Caliphate. It's rather biting satire that I suspect was directly inspired by the attempts to do so with Russia over the Ukraine invasion.

The book is divided between the attempts by Jacob Grimm to head off attacks against one of their allies despite the fact his superior officer thinks he's a ticking time bomb psychopath with political connections AND Nadia attempting to root out the conspiracy within the Alliance. There's lots of fun twists and turns throughout this book. Also, we have some interesting debates on when it is an appropriate time to leak information to the public from classified documents. Thankfully, the leaker in this case ends up better off than Reality Winner.

I think what I enjoy most about the GRIMM'S WAR series is the fact that it manages to jump genres so easily. The previous books were straight up military science fiction while this one is as much an extensive spy thriller. I also like the fact the protagonists aren't always right in their suppositions. At one point, Nadia is sure a man has to be a sinister agent for the Caliphate and is left in a terrible position because, no, he just thinks that economic bridge building will do better long-term good than war.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this novel and am anxious for the next in the series. I felt it was a mistake holding off on the war with the Caliphate for as long as the series did, especially after the attack on the Alliance's capital in the second book, but I think we're finally gearing up for that battle. I also really liked a character's redemption arc in this story. It was slow enough to believable but also had enough complications to make it "messy" and I like messy redemptions.