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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars just isnt enough, January 10, 2002
I have long been a fan of Reginald Hill, prefering his Dalziel and Pascoe to most other things he writes. And with this book, he has truly surpassed himself. This is the best book i have read in 2001. (it was published in march 2001 here) and i enjoyed it more than i think i have ever enjoyed anything. Hill's plotting is superb, and his characters equally sublime. This is truly a word puzzle, he lays out the clues for you along the way, but in such a way that you dont realize youre being fed clues (and in some cases red herrings) When you get to the end, it all makes some kind of glorious sense, and you wonder how stupid you were for missing all the little hints. This IS his best d&p. and perosnally, it is probably my favourite book ever. (i speak nay in jest). the characters in this book are superb, especially Hat Bowler and Rye Pomona. They are rather simple, (alright, only Hat is, Rye is as deep as the maraianas trench) but his simplicity is compelling. He holds some kind of innocence, a son-like quality, which just makes you care for him and want it all to work out well for the poor lad. It was a great book, until the end. Upon which it became a SUPERB book! Hill really outdoes himself with the end (and i really really hope they didnt change it one iota in the american version, as they sometimes tend to do, because it really was a great ending). For pages he's tricking you, then suddenly you see it all. You're in shock, then he explains it, making you feel like an idiot for not spotting it sooner. Really, you should read some of the previous d & p books, as there are some vague references to them. You can probably get by without having read them, but if you read An Advancement of Learning, it will certainly help you. As ever, Dalziel brings forth many a chuckle. But in this book he seems to take a back seat, becomeing much more the overseer of events, taking on a somewhat god-like quality. He isnt always right there, but his prescence and influence can almost always be felt. This is, in short, nothing less than a superb book. If you miss it, you are definitely missing out, on a great reading experience. You dont even have to like word puzzles. Whatever sort of book you like, this is one not to miss. Under any circumstances. and just revel in the ending
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clever, clever, clever, January 26, 2003
Reginald Hill is spoiling me. His Dalziel and Pascoe books have become the most consistently original mystery series being written today. In each book, he not only plays with the conventions of the detective novel, but experiments with the very nature of storytelling itself. There are only a few times in my life that immediately upon finishing a book, I've turned to the beginning and immediately reread it, but this book definitely warranted it. The puzzles within puzzles within puzzles were brilliant. The book begins with a librarian and his assistant reading the entries for a local writing contest. One anonymous writer's submissions claim that two recent accidental deaths were actually murders. The police are skeptical, but some a third death occurs which is undoubtably murder, and Dalziel and Pascoe know they have a serial killer at work, a killer whose obsession with word games prompts his readers to call him the Wordman. This is more than a simple mystery novel, but a wonderful exploration of words and meaning and storytelling. Even as the characters point out how words can twist and mislead, Hill twists and misleads us in those exact ways, even until the harrowing climax, and the wrenching unexpected twist that follows, and the brilliant last line that caps everything that has gone before. Hill is a master of words, and there is not one placed wrongly in this entire elaborate puzzle of a novel.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jack or Jill?, October 6, 2002
Nobody knows if the short and crude letters to newspapers signed Jack the Ripper were really written by that maniac, but general consensus is that they were. (As were Son of Sam's) In any case that has become a tried-and-true gambit to use in mystery novels. Here it is carried to extremes beyond belief. But that doesn't matter unless you want all your mysteries based on nits, grits, and grunting cop work. Hill has developed his own style, combining really earthy police procedural novel with airy intellectual gamesmanship. In his case it works very well (better than it did with Michael Innes, for example). The fact that taunting dialogues are not normally sent to the investigators except on a primitive level like Jack, Sam, and Zodiac, does not detract from this really intriguing story. The methodology of the mad serial killer falls into the classic ABC format of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, but practically no reader will ever suss out this gimmick. The identity of the murderer is easy enough to deduce from the plentiful clues (nicely spiced up with red-herring suspects who also fit the bill), but you will still be blown away by the epilogue, which ranks up with John Dickson Carr's "Burning Court" as a stunning ending. I hope I'm not giving too much away, but that only applies to people who haven't yet read the book but intend to. Some reviewers on this site knock the book (as they did the last one, "Arms and the Women") for having irrelevant or distracting interpolations from the thoughts or writings of an undisclosed character, or else when the source is known, just unimportant padding. Not the case! Hill's books are getting longer and longer (aren't most mystery writers doing that these days?), but they are not padded out. EVERYTHING is relevant, which is why he is such a master. On the other hand, many readers just don't like the style of this sort of book. The low-life Dalziel stuff is great, and the bathroom wit. But a lot of people don't want to put up with dealing in quotations from obscure poets or the use of obscure words like paronomasia. OK don't read it then. But if you want to stretch your mind a little bit beyond normal reading, then definitely books like this one have to be on your list. Remember what a fuss was made about "Name of the Rose" many years ago? Reviewers fell over backwards saying how great it was, and the public bought that snobby attitude to the extent of making it a best-seller. But nobody had any idea what the author was talking about. What is semiotics? Nobody knows, so everybody is impressed. What is Paronomania? Not even dedicated Scrabble players know (probably I will get dumped on by fanatic Paranomaniacs on the Internet for saying this). The point is that everything is perfectly clued in this mystery, and if you miss the solution, that makes it all the better, because that's what the genre is all about. Oh, and don't ever think that because Hill is 'academic' in his writing that nothing ever happens. There is blood and gore in plenty here.
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