Someone Must Know

Name: Someone Must Know
Price: 65 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781847928542

The Search for Missing People and Lost Identities

Dave Grimstead

$65

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

The Bodley Head Ltd
11 June 2026

Memoirs; True crime; Society & culture: general; Crime & criminology

The enthralling insight of We Are Bellingcat meets the human drama and compassion of The Devil You Know- this is the true story of those who go missing, and the people who dedicate their lives to finding out what happened.

'The heart and soul of what it means to be human. Heart-rending but utterly uplifting' PROFESSOR LADY SUE BLACK

'Gripping and compassionate, it digs beneath the surface to expose the agony of those lost and those left behind' VAL MCDERMID

Every two minutes someone is reported missing in the UK. Most return, but some do not. This book is about those who stay missing.

The police are unable to investigate every case fully and so, too often, these people disappear from memory. But the missing always leave behind traces - clues as to who they might have been and where they might have gone.

Dave Grimstead, a retired detective inspector, has built Locate International- a remarkable and eclectic team of passionate volunteers - oceanographers and genealogists, forensic linguists and vintage clothes experts, students and retirees - all united by a desire to restore to the missing their names, faces and humanity. And to do that, they must follow the clues wherever they lead.

In a world where the questions begin with a scrap of wet paper in a pocket, an old dress or a faded photograph, the answers are by turns devastating, poignant and deeply mysterious. Someone Must Know brings readers into the heart of stories that cross decades and international borders, as Locate's investigators snatch leads from the mists of the past in search of answers, closure and the truth.

Through a series of riveting cold cases, from the strikingly tall man washed up at sea with unusual weights tied to his ankles, to the mother who simply left home one day and slipped through the cracks of everyday life, Someone Must Know explores the reality of what it means to search for those who are lost. Above all, it is a compassionate, moving study in how to reconstruct whole lives from fragments of evidence, and to follow the stories of people who are gone but do not deserve to be forgotten.

By: Dave Grimstead
Imprint: The Bodley Head Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781847928542
ISBN 10: 1847928544
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 11 June 2026
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Dave Grimstead is the head of Locate International, a not-for-profit comprised of an eclectic group of volunteers that helps families of unsolved missing person cases find their loved ones. The organisation's work is the subject of Channel 4's The Body Detectives and featured in The Missing Podcast hosted by Pandora Sykes. Dave and Locate have featured in various media outlets, including BBC News, Guardian, Daily Express, Metro and more. Before founding Locate in 2019, Dave enjoyed a distinguished 40-year policing career as a Detective Inspector, leading complex investigations from kidnap and extortion to homicide and missing person cases. He has also worked extensively in the field of international and serious organised crime with the NCA where he managed successful investigations in drug and people trafficking. He retired from the police in 2012.