Customer Reviews

Pictures of Perfection (Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries)

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Hill's mysteries are rarely about "big picture" issues, where the fate of the world is at stake. Rather, they feature small multiple crimes--sometimes without murder--and Hill's focus is on manipulating the reader's mind. That's why Dalziel can solve crimes with, apparently, just a look or a hear (while Pascoe has to work harder)--since sleuthing and police procedures take a distant back seat to character and spicy plots designed to ensnare and misdirect the reader. Pictures of Perfection is a perfect example.

The plot is particularly clever. The dreadful opening scene sets your expectations of suspense and a horrific climax. Personal and criminal subplots interweave minor mysteries, including key ones of paintings and an artist. Hill has carefully constructed traps for the unwary reader. Bit by bit our perceptions of personalities and crimes are reversed or inverted. The clues left never feel like "aha, a clue!" or resolve into trails pointing somewhere. I didn't have a clue what the real mysteries were at the heart of an intimate Yorkshire village (even its name is a little mystery, among those recounted in an episodic "History of "Enscombe"). The writing is especially rich in sly quotes of famous literature. The multiple story lines were full of velvet-gloved sucker punches for this reader, a masterful work of misdirection, where obvious deductions become false. Quite an amazing achievement.

This book is one of those in the Dalziel and Pascoe series. Those who have read it seem to be divided between enjoying it the most of any D/P book and disliking it the most. I belong to the former camp.

It would be impossible to summarize the plot without giving away what readers need to find out for themselves. It starts with a real bang and from there the story rolls along until an ending which makes sense of all that has gone before. Whether you like it or not is up to you.

For me, I loved the humor of the book (it's the funniest of the series) and the freedom Reginald Hill gave himself to play games with the characters and the reader. The dialogue is witty, the plot and settings well-drawn and, to my great pleasure, Sgt. Wield is at last given the prominence he deserves. I'd love to see him as the principal character in a novel- how about it, Mr. Hill?

Read it for yourself and join the debate.