Product Description

'Hill's wit is the constant, ironic foil to his vision, and to call this a mere crime novel is to say Everest is a nice little hill' Frances Hegarty, Mail on Sunday A ravaged wood, a man in uniform long dead -- this is not a World War One battlefield, but Wanwood House, a pharmaceutical research centre. Peter Pascoe attends his grandmother's funeral, and scattering her ashes leads him too into wartorn woods in search of his great-grandfather who fought and died in Passchendaele. Seeing the wood for the trees is the problem for Andy Dalziel when he finds himself fancying an animal rights activist, depite her possible complicity in a murderous assault and her appalling taste in whisky. A mind-bending puzzle leading us on the wild side of the pastoral.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #261896 in Books
• Published on: 1997-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 500 pages

Review
'These novels last, like a grand malt whisky' Mail on Sunday 'One of Britain's most consistently excellent crime novelists' The Times 'One of the masters of the modern police procedural' Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
Reginald Hill was brought up in Cumbria, and has returned there after many years in Yorkshire. With his first crime novel, A Clubbable Woman, he was hailed as 'the crime novel's best hope' and twenty years on he has more than fulfilled that promise.

Customer Reviews

Prime Dalziel and Pascoe
If you are already familiar with Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series, recommending this one is not going to be a hard sell. If not, check this out and discover one of the contemporary masters of the crime novel.

This is an ambitious work; Hill clearly intends to transcend the police procedural genre, and includes a parallel story set in the ghastly killing fields of Passchendaele in the Great War that dovetails with the present-day police investigation that is the nominal subject of the book. It must be said that the interwoven story of Pascoe's ancestor (who shares his name) strains credulity; it's a literary construct that doesn't really come off.

But who cares? Hill as a writer is otherwise at the top of his game. It's full of witty dialogue (if only people in life -- myself included -- could set off such a string of verbal firecrackers, how much more entertaining our daily round would be!). Dalziel's Yorkshire dialect is a constant source of delight: I hope expressions like "nowt," "tha's," "lass," et al. aren't dying out. And as usual, the characters, especially the detectives and Pascoe's wife Ellie, are drawn in psychological depth.

The novel can be enjoyed as pure entertainment. But, notwithstanding the parallel story's unlikelihood, it offers a window into the ungodly horrors of life in the trenches in 1917 and the savagery of military "justice" in the British army of the time.

Well written but prepare to have your credibility stretched
This was very interesting and I enjoyed the way that Hill juxtaposes the images of the war torn trenches and the modern day wasteland where the body is found. It focuses mainly on Pascoe, which didn't appeal so much to me as Dalziel is my hero. It also requires gigantic leaps of faith to believe that the coincidences and parallels that hold the plot together can happen. Having said that Hill's work is never boring and I enjoyed it very much.

Stormy Weather
I'm getting to really love the characters in these books and care about them as if they were friends. Poor old Pascoe tends to get some stick, though, both physical and mental, especially in this one. I'm really enjoying these mid-period novels and just goes to show how characters develop over time.

I love the literary allusions and loved the relationship between Dalziel and Cap Marvell, despite her taste in whisky. Yes, the WW1 connections strain credulity, but this is a novel not non-fiction.