Recap / Criminal Case: Grimsborough - Historical Center District

Because art and history go hand-by-hand.

The Historical Center is the third district investigated in Criminal Case: Grimsborough.

A quiet and relatively peaceful district compared to the dangerous Industrial Area or the grandiose Financial Center, the Historical Center boasts old and artistic buildings such as museums, theaters, and antique shops, as well as being adjoined to a forest and a lake. While the Historical Center doesn't have a particular storyline going on for it, almost every case has at least one character mentioning the Dog Pageant Contest that will be taking place in few weeks, which of course ends up acting as the setting for the final case of the district.

Cases Set in the Historical Center

1. To Die or Not to Die: An actor is crushed to death by a sandbag on a theater.
2. The Final Journey: A young man is poisoned inside his aunt's attic.
3. Anatomy of a Murder: A mystery novelist is taxidermied and left on display in a museum.
4. The Ghost of Grimsborough: A painter suddenly dies with no explanation inside his own studio.
5. The Summoning: A teenager is sacrificed for a ritual inside a crypt.
6. The Lake's Bride: A woman is found drowned inside the trunk of her car besides a lake.
7. The Haunting of Elm Manor: A man is crushed to death by a chandelier inside his own manor.
8. No Smoke Without Fire: A chief scout is stabbed and burned on his own campsite.
9. The Wollcrafts' Creature: An activist is electrocuted to death with a mysterious machine.
10. Dog Eat Dog: An old woman and her dog are poisoned on the Dog Pageant Contest event site.

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Tropes:

• Arc Villain: Margaret Littlewood, a Glory Hound old lady who has been poisoning dogs so her own can win the Dog Pageant Contest. In the district's finale, she also kills one of the owners and attempts to do the same with Jones.
• Breather Episode: Compared to the previous two districts that involved either a violent Mob War or a Corrupt Corporate Executive controlling the entire district, the Historical Center mostly has the player solving "Scooby-Doo" Hoax-esque regular murders in the most relaxed part of the city without anyone in particular provoking them, resulting in plenty of Hilarity Ensues as everyone in the team tries to either prove or disprove the supposed supernatural occurrences haunting the district. In addition, the Arc Villain is also the less threatening one of the entire season, being just a regular old lady that, while guilty of the nefarious act of poisoning dogs, an owner, and almost killing Jones, at the end of the day doesn't manage to reach the evilness levels that both previous and subsequent antagonists have. Fittingly, the Historical Center also marks the middle point of the game, giving the player some relief from the previous districts while also preparing them for what's about to come in the next ones.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Dog Pageant Contest. It's mentioned during almost every case, most of the Recurring Characters you meet tell you they're going to be participating in it, and even Chief King and the mayor tell you it's the most important event in the entire district. Wanna guess where the final case of the Historical Center ends up taking place?
• Close-Knit Community: Almost everyone knows each other in this district, which makes sense considering most of its inhabitants are adults and old people without better things to do that hanging out with each other.
• A Day in the Limelight: This district puts a greater emphasis on Ramirez and his antics, with him having some sort of importance in almost every case due to his beliefs that the Historical Center is haunted and full of supernatural creatures. He even gets to be your partner for a portion of the district's finale after Jones falls sick.
• Recurring Character: The recurring characters that you encounter multiple times throughout the Historical Center are Margaret Littlewood, Charles Parker, Gertrude Piccadilly, James Savage, Desmond Galloway, Constance Bell, and to a lesser extent Molly Robinson.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A Running Gag during the district is that at least half of the murders seem to be linked to the supernatural or the occultism at first, only to be revealed at the end of the case that they were executed by regular people trying to pass them as such. These include a supposed ghost who kills anyone who paints their portrait, a satanic Ritual Magic linked to a Tome of Eldritch Lore, a lake-inhabiting monster that drowns people, a Haunted House angry with its inhabitants, and a Mad Scientist trying to create a Frankenstein's Monster dog.