Customer Reviews

ON BEULAH HEIGHT

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's so rare to pick up a modern author from this genre (mystery) and have his talent as a wordsmith be so exquisite. If I seem effusive concerning this book, you will have to excuse me. When you get stuck reading a lot of badly written textbooks, and other material whether books or journals for profesional purposes, when you do pick up a good mystery (based on recommendations from Amazon.com--thanks guys!) it is nice to be able to dive into a story which is not only a good mystery, but the writing itself is wonderful.

The British have a way with the English language. I don't know what is in the water over there, but I am increasingly finding that my tastes are generally more satisfied when reading British mysteries. And I am not talking Agatha Christie here, though I've read stuff that far back. Hill is an obvious contender for those who enjoy P.D. James mysteries, as well as historical mysteries of the type written by Charles Todd (I keep forgetting he is American).

This story is painstakingly drawn out. It's a hefty mystery, and frankly, Hill did a great job by not allowing the reader to determine who was responsible for the disappearance of several young girls. I made several errors in judgement, that were solved (sensibly thank heavens) in the last three chapters. Rarely do I get up out of bed at night and spend three hours in a chair to finish reading a book which I just cannot put down. But I did this with this author.

I am looking forward to his other books...it is great to find another author with many books to his name that I can enjoy for a while (I read so fast usually that I go through good authors too quick and have to find another one).

I've been following Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series for years; the only thing bad about this the author is his unfortunate tendency to go out-of-print here in the States.

This is an author whose writing has undergone a noticeable improvement over the years. The first books in the series seem more formulaic and even a bit dated when held up to later entries. But this is only comparing a writer against himself: these books still stand out among the usual British procedurals; Hill's distinctive characterization is present from the first book. It's definitely worth reading the series in order, if you can find all the titles. Doing so, you can trace the development of all the characters, most notably Wield and Dalziel, who usually steal the show from the intellectual and prototypically 'heroic' Pascoe. These two are in no way side characters; this is ensemble work.

'On Beulah Height' is another great entry in the series, digging deep into the Yorkshire landscape and making a compelling story of local history. Buy, buy, buy, and tell your friends. I keep hoping that the more interest in raised in this series, the better our chances to see reissues of the earlier works.

A few years ago I discovered Dalziel (pronounced "deal") and Pascoe on A&E. I became intrigued, and set out to read all Hill's many books on this infamous pair of "thinking" British cops. I am now almost caught up as "On Beulah Height" is the next to the last installment in Hill's series.

I think the best way to read Hill's books is chronologically, but there are many of them. You can figure out the order by their publication dates. The stories are complex so even if you see them dramatized on A&E you can still enjoy the written text as much of it is interior monologue/thinking. Hill writes books that eschew the pounding action of many current mystery writers (who give me a headache). His plots move vigorously, but they are thinking reader's books--somewhat like those of Colin Dexter.

DCI Peter Pascoe and his wife Ellie have to be one of the nicest, most down-to-earth, and likeable couples around. Hill has tracked their courtship, marriage, marital problems, and the birth of their child Rosie, though the various cases Dalziel and Pascoe have undertaken. This book continues their story, while simultaneously filling out the lives of other characters: Dalziel (the fat man from Yorkshire), Weild(y) (the "gay" cop who rides a motorcycle and has a kindly heart) and the female cop DC Novello.

"On Beulah Height" is a tough book, as it involves the disappearance and supposed deaths of several small girls. Interwoven through the search for the abductor/killer is the tale of Rosie Pascoe's fight for her own life. Hill has used a the device of a children's story entitled "Nina and the Nix" to structure his plot.

The characters are believable, from the singer Elizabeth Wulfson to the "retarded" Benny Lightfoot. I like Hill's inclination to describe the interaction between men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, and lovers of both sexes. Hill understands human behavior, and his characters are quite believable.

In the end, the loose ends are tied up. You may find one angle a bit stretched, but I am willing to give Hill the suspension of disbelief.

In his recent Dalziel-Pascoe detective novels, Reginald Hill has stretched the genre well beyond its normal limits - by probing the psychological background and personal lives of his investigators (even, in this book, the Pascoes' daughter); breaking the narrative for flashbacks; and introducing subplots that, in the end, more or less flow back into the mainstream of the narrative. In The Woods Beyond, the main back-story device was too schematic to be convincing (see my review of that if you're interested); here, though, in spite of a story that is if anything even more complex, throwing in elements ranging from a child's fantasy to the Mahler song cycle Kindertotenlieder, Hill pulls it off more coherently.

The case involves the disappearance of a young girl, which appears to have links to another series of disappearances 15 years earlier, in a Yorkshire village called Dendale. Around the time of the earlier disappearances, Dendale was de-populated, its inhabitants relocated, and the village disappeared under a new dam. At the time of the present case, the village's ruins are reappearing because of a severe heat wave that is drying up the dam-created lake. (This aspect of the plot is oddly similar to that in Peter Robinson's In a Dry Season. If Yorkshire really has such bone-dry summers these days, global warming must be a fact!)

Mystery fans unaccustomed to Hill's latter-day style who come to this novel expecting a conventional, straightforward police procedural may find themselves thrown off balance. If that is you, I recommend you stick with it: your indulgence will be rewarded. Those familiar with the Dalziel-Pascoe series will respond to all its usual virtues, including the contradictory character of "Fat Andy" Dalziel, crude and sarcastic yet possessed of a kind of psychological x-ray vision that penetrates the lies, stratagems and evasions of a suspect in short order.

One annoyance: the publisher of the American edition has seen fit to change the British spellings to American ones where they differ. That makes no sense, commercially or artistically. Any reader who enjoys, or can accept, the thick Yorkshire dialect in which the characters speak is hardly going to be deterred by a few spelling variants. What was anybody thinking?

I've just begun to read Reginald Hill in my constant search for new and exciting authors, and I seem to have hit the jackpot with this one. (I'm writing this review as I'm searching for the next Hill novel to put on my shopping list!) The characters are alive, the plot is intricate, the story is highly emotional, and the reader's involvement is intense until the last page has been turned. In my mind, a true masterpiece.

Fifteen years have elapsed since the small Yorkshire village of Dendale of was flooded in order to create a reservoir. However, the orderly moving of the residents took a bizarre twist when three young girls disappeared and the prime suspect Benny Lightfoot vanished. Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel never closed the book on this case.

However, a drought has occurred, leaving the reservoir at an all time low. The village has begun to reappear. At the same time, graffiti proclaims the return of Lightfoot and a girl has been reported missing. This time around Dalziel and his partner, Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe, hope they capture the culprit before anyone else disappears.

No review can do justice to the multi-layered, incredibly complex, but brilliantly written ON BEULAH HEIGHT. This novel has so many dimensions yet due to the tremendous talent of Reginald Hill, they all work and blend together so that the reader never feels lost. It's strongly recommend that fans read the entire series, but especially this masterpiece that showcases the mystery genre at its best.

Harriet Klausner END

Quite possibly the strongest of Hill's novels, *On Beulah Height* evokes, with eerie intensity, every parent's visceral fear of losing their child. At the same time, it explores the multiple and complex strands of love: between parent and child, performer and vocation, person and place, man and woman (or man)... And there are some nifty thematic hooks, like Mahler's *Kindertotenlieder* and a folktale-children's story, "Nina and the Nix" (complete with illustration), both of which play important parts in the narrative's development. As always, Hill jumps gracefully between different times and points of view. There is some occasional humor to leaven what otherwise might be an unbearably grim novel. Readers new to this series should be aware that this really is a *series*; while Hill does some necessary retreading in spots, in several instances readers do need to know the previous novels in order to make sense of the action or character development (particularly in the case of Sgt. Wield). And be warned: the Yorkshire dialect can be heavy going if you are not yet accustomed to it.

One of the more disturbing books in the Dalziel and Pascoe series, in part because of the theme of serial child killing, but also because it shows that there are no easy answers. It's a complex and thought-provoking story, and one that easily supports re-reading. There is the mystery, yes, but there is also the psychological study of a village traumatised both by a series of unsolved child murders and by its forced relocation after its valley was drowned by a new water reservoir. It's also beautifully written by a master of prose. Hill brings his characters to full and vivid life, and they will linger with you for days.

Ideally the series should be read in order, and I think regular readers already familiar with the characters will get more out of this book, but it can be read as a standalone. For those familiar with the series, Hill continues to develop the story of his ongoing characters, deftly weaving it into the main plot of the book. Note that there are references to events in the previous book (The Wood Beyond) which are slight spoilers for that book.

As an avid reader, I judge the success of a story by whether the solution, as it is revealed, raises the hair on the back of my neck and send shivers down my spine, not in fear, but in appreciation of just how inevitable and "right" the solution is to the puzzle. Naturally this reaction can only really happen when a story is so rich and absorbing that you can't tear yourself away. Reginald Hill almost always achieves sucess in his mysteries, but this one is a cut above.
Long ago young girls disappeared in the hills on Beulah Height. The one survivor is now a successful singer who must struggle to search within herself for long forgotten memories to help Dalziel and Pascoe prevent another tragedy. When the pieces fall into place, it is like a kaleidoscope that suddenly spins into sharp focus and you wonder how you missed the picture right up until the point when all becomes clear. Read this one for the exhiliration of that moment. Mystery readers who appreciate the "thrill" of a breathtaking solution should not miss Reginald Hill's most suspenseful read.

For 15 years the disappearance of three little girls has occupied the minds of the villagers of Danby, a Mid-Yorkshire hamlet that is usually concerned with their sheep--or their re-location due to the construction of a lake that has caused many to be uprooted and moved. The disappearance has also occupied the mind of Andy Dalziel, Reginald Hill's chief character in "On Beulah Hieight"and superintendent of the local CID, who knows his Mahler like the next guy. "Fat Andy" was in charge of that investigation and the fact that it wasn't solved has long bothered him. Now, another child has gone missing, opening up old wounds and introducing new ones. Signs have been spray painted around town that "Benny's Back" and that also unnerves the locals, especially those with young children themselves. Benny Lightfoot was the chief suspect those years ago but because Dalziel didn't really believe he was guilty, let him go, and then he disappeared. The villagers--and the readers--are on edge, to say the least. Dalziel, along with Peter Pascoe, Sergeant Wield, and WCI Novello, begins his methodical search, this time determined not to let this one get through. Author Hill, in his usual manner, guides us through with a hop here, a skip there, and a leap over there at, but the reader generally stays "on target" with this book, and, unlike his earlier "Pictures of Perfection," Hill takes his work seriously and we don't have to wonder if there's going to be the "surprise" ending that "Pictures" produced. In "Beulah," however, so many references are made to "Pictures" that it helps if one has read that one as well. Allusions to previous Dalziel/Pascoe investigations are there, which can be a pain for readers who may have decided to pick this book for its own merit (Martha Grimes is also quite guilty of this, as well). Hill's prose remains the same, and he seems determined to make us think he has a bigger vocabulary than P.D. James. He writes, "Dalziel pondered, his great face brooding like God's over a tricky piece of epeirogeny." ("Deformation of the earth's crust by which the broader features of relief are produced"--I looked it up for you in Webster's Seventh Collegiate!). He also includes "pendentious" but my Webster doesn't carry that one: perhaps it's a Yorkshire term. Hill continues with expressions like "Pascoe prevaricated." (Note to Hill: James would have simply said "he lied"!). Add periodic bouts of melodrama and you have the minus side of the book. The pluses, however, outweigh the minuses, and the aforementioned obstacles aside, "On Beulah Height" is a sound, almost mesmerizing story. There are enough solid examples of fulfilling the needs of this genre to make this one--and all the other Hill books I have read, at least--worthwhile. Hill is not guilty of being too simple in his plot and character developments and both ring true. Dalziel's acid wit and at times crude, boorish behavior work just right and with Pascoe's urbane, refined side, Hill has concocted a winning team. English television has made a number of the Dalziel/Pascoe cases into movies and one can only hope that they will continue, as it eliminates some of the minus of Hill's prose, and the actors cast seem quite appropriate. As a venerable American baseball player might once have said, "It ain't over till the Fat Man sings." And so far, Andy hasn't started singing. Let's hope he keeps those tunes to himself, as Hill's adventures are worth the effort!