Good Morning, Midnight [Hardcover]

Reginald Hill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

Latest in ever-popular and consistently acclaimed Dalziel & Pascoe series: 'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Tom Hiney, Observer Fat Andy, Peter Pascoe, Wieldy and the others tackle another Mid-Yorkshire mystery in this, their latest outing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One part traditional English whodunit and one part shadowy corporate thriller, Diamond Dagger winner Hill's 21st Dalziel/Pascoe mystery (after 2003's Death's Jest-Book) weaves a complex and deeply satisfying tale. Pal Mciver is found dead, an apparent suicide, in a locked room of the old family house in Yorkshire. The circumstances mimic the suicide of his father, a former Ashur-Mac corporation executive, 10 years before. A book of Emily Dickinson poems found at the scene may hold clues to both deaths. Called in to investigate, detectives Peter Pascoe and Andy Dalziel find themselves entering an ever-widening and ever more intricate web of relationships. The particulars of some of these relationships hint at murder rather than suicide. Kay Kafka, Pal Mciver's stepmother, is particularly well drawn, a mixture of sadness, salaciousness, possible malice and cool intelligence. As the novel nimbly moves from character to character, it also calls into question the motives of Ashur-Mac, whose arms dealings ring a note of present-day relevance. Throughout, Pascoe and Dalziel are their usual witty, intelligent selves; they continue to be two of the more interesting police detectives in modern crime fiction. The descriptions of Dalziel are particularly fine: "like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, Dalziel provided a new and unignorable focus of attention." Hill has provided readers with a superior example of the mystery form—one with a deliciously cold sting in the final pages.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

British writer and Dagger award-winning author Reginald Hill isn’t just verbose; he’s prolific as well. That the 21st installment of his Dalziel-Pascoe series (after 2003’s Death’s Jest-Book) turns its attention to America and international arms conspiracies strikes some critics as evidence that Hill’s mid-Yorkshire has been tapped out of story ideas. Worse yet, The Scotsman believes Dalziel has devolved from a character to a caricature. On the western side of the Atlantic, the critics welcome Hill’s intricate plots, large vocabulary and wit, and intelligent approach to the mystery genre. Hill "keeps the reader mesmerized," noted the Providence Journal.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harper Collins (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 000712340X
• ISBN-13: 978-0007123407
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,016,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Reginald Hill has been widely published both in England and the United States. He received Britain's most coveted mystery writers award, the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, as well as the Golden Dagger for his Dalziel/Pascoe series. He lives with his wife in Cumbria, England.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dalziel and Pascoe at the top of their game, November 3, 2004

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good Morning Midnight (Hardcover)

British award-winner Hill delivers another witty and delightful Dalziel and Pascoe novel, his 21st. An irascible force of nature, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel seems uncharacteristically incurious about the peculiar suicide of antiques dealer Pal Maciver, ordering Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe to write it off without further investigation. Which Pascoe would have been inclined to do - room locked from the inside, toe through shotgun trigger guard - but for Dalziel's suspicious complacency.

Now, the reader knows, as the police do not, that Maciver went to considerable trouble to stage his suicide as a murder, framing his hated stepmother, and that only careful investigation would turn up the clues he had planted. His suicide is a replica of his father's a decade before, right down to the volume of Emily Dickinson poems open on his desk.

These were a favorite of the American stepmother, Kay, now Kafka, married to Tony Kafka, head of the munitions company that swallowed the Maciver family business all those years ago. It's Kay whom Dalziel seems to be protecting, an enigma who may be as calculating as she is beguiling, though she has the fat man's total confidence.

Point of view switches among the various members of the police team (though never Dalziel; that would blunt his mystique), the family, and the spooks surrounding Kafka's business. The plot thickens as it goes, the by-play among the cops remains witty and shrewd (vaguely like a British version of McBain's 87th precinct), the characters' interactions are complex and satisfyingly underhanded and Hill delivers a sharp twist at the end that settles some questions while raising a host of new ones. Another winner from a writer who just keeps getting better.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A satisfying return to form for Hill, May 2, 2005

By 

Laurie Fletcher "Laurie Fletcher" (Casper, Wyoming, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Good Morning Midnight (Hardcover)

I was glad to see this book come out and even happier to read it. The past few Reginald Hill books in the Dalziel and Pascoe series have been entirely too cerebral for a simple sot like me and I started to actually resent Reginald Hill for ramming home his blinding intellect so fiercely. He must have gotten that out of his system, because in "Good Morning, Midnight", we have a really nifty, twisty mystery with the usual great attraction/avoidance between our beloved inspectors Dalziel and Pascoe. This doesn't mean that Hill deprives us of Dalziel's fantastically literate musings (and I'm sure I only "get" a small percentage of these) but they aren't the centerpiece. The story is. And there is nothing so delicious as a good old-fashioned "body in the library" mystery with lots of nasty family members involved. It is even better when the ugliness goes back a few generations and we get an intriguing backstory as a result. I still wish Ellie Pascoe would get a life and that Dalziel's love life would pick back up again, but that might have made too weighty and dense a story. In truth, this one was just right.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mid-Yorkshire CID does it again, October 29, 2004

By 

T. Smith (Elizabethtown, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good Morning Midnight (Hardcover)

In this latest entry in the long-running Dalziel and Pascoe series, Hill leaves the "literary" plots of the last two novels and returns to regular chapter titles, without the amazingly relevant quotes that preceded chapters in these works (although Emily Dickinson's poetry does give the book its title and figures into the plot in a minor way).

Fans of the series won't be disappointed. Having said that, I don't feel that GMM is quite up there with the best of the series, like On Beulah Height and Bones and Silence. Still, just when I think I might tire of reading another Dalziel and Pascoe story and would rather read something else, I find myself very interested in the plot and caring about the characters again. Hill is so insightful psychologically that it is always a delight to read the thoughts of his characters. Even when you don't agree with his political views (which certainly creep in), you have to respect his honesty and the fact that Hill really seems to be able to find something likeable or at least interesting in almost every character (including Dalziel, who never sounds like as good a character as he really is when I describe him to my wife).

So be a clever clogs and enjoy the funny buggers in GMM.