Read in 2009:
The twenty-fourth Dalziel and Pascoe novel. Hill still at the top of his game, maybe even more so in this stripped-down tale of Dalziel’s first case after getting blown up by a bomb in The Death of Dalziel. All of the action takes place over one fraught day, and all the usual suspects, Pascoe, Wieldy, Ellie, even the idiot Hector are present and accounted for, along with a handful of new characters equally well drawn and a bait-and-switch plot that keeps you guessing right to the end. Of course the real question is, is the Fat Man back, or is he on his way to the knacker’s yard?

Reread in 2024:
Holds up well as it was long enough since the first read that I completely forgot the twist at the end and it’s a zinger. A slightly melancholic read, though, as we know now it is the last Dalziel and Pascoe novel. Still glad that Dalziel went out on a high, although my favorites in this series are Pictures of Perfection, the best shaggy dog story ever written, and The Wood Beyond, where so much goes on you need a scorecard to keep up. But my all time favorite Reginald Hill novel is No Man’s Land. As with The Wood Beyond it is easy to see that World War I was a hot button issue with Hill, and he wrote about it better than just about anyone.

Uncategorized Dalziel and Pascoe Midnight Fugue Reginald Hill