The Roar of the Butterflies [Mass Market Paperback]

Reginald Hill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2008

Laid-off lathe operator-turned-private investigator Joe Sixsmith is suddenly very popular, and not just with the ladies. Though he doesn't know a putter from a nine iron, he's being implored to come to the rescue of one Christian Porphyry, the scion of the upper-crust family that owns the most exclusive country club in Luton. Porphyry faces expulsion for the heinous crime of cheating at golf.

Inexplicably, political boss/crime czar "King Rat" Ratcliffe is also interested in employing Joe, offering him some very attractive surveillance work in sunny Spain. But Sixsmith's more intrigued by the first case, especially when a possible witness to the alleged indiscretion mysteriously vanishes.

It's not unusual for Joe to feel out of his depth, but this time he feels out of his class too. Suddenly he faces a potentially fatal pummeling from a variety of sources—and is in grave peril of discovering just how dangerous a contact sport golf can be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Reginald Hill is quite simply one of the best at work today.”
— Boston Globe

“Delightful. . . . Highly entertaining.”
— Literary Review (UK)

“Told with humour and a light touch. . . Ideal summer reading.”
— Sunday Telegraph (UK)

Praise for the Joe Sixsmith series:
“Entertaining, sly, jokey . . . cynical, well written, and teems with sparkly dialogue — all the virtues we expect from Hill.”
— The Times (UK)


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Reginald Hill is a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his novels featuring Superintendent Dalziel and DCI Pascoe. Their appearances have won him numerous awards, including a CWA Gold Dagger and the Car-tier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award. The Dalziel and Pascoe stories have also been adapted into a hugely popular BBC TV series.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061451983
• ISBN-13: 978-0061451980
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #430,983 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

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect summer read - and great for winter too!, July 6, 2008

By 

UK, French, Canadian tri-national - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Roar of the Butterflies (Hardcover)

Most readers know Reginald Hill for his Dalziel and Pascoe books, and very good they are too. The Joe Sexsmith series showcases the lighter side of this wonderful crime writer. In this book Sexsmith, a somewhat tubby middle-aged black PI, is asked to help a popular local golf-club member fight the allegation that he cheated during an important match. Sounds like a minor problem to Joe, but while investigating the incident he turns up something much nastier. I'm not a golfer myself and though the game of golf is front and centre in the plot I had no trouble following along as any arcane terms were subtly explained. Joe's lissome nurse girlfriend, his cat Whitey, and a forceful, jealous boxer are just a few of the beautifully described and very funny characters in this book, while the plot is so gripping that I literally could not put it down. This is a wonderful read for a summer's afternoon - but beware. Supper could be late!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe Sixsmith rules the links, August 12, 2008

By 

S. Saunders (Rocky Mountains USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Roar of the Butterflies (Joe Sixsmith) (Kindle Edition)

Well, actually Joe doesn't golf. He's just a guy trying to scratch out a living as a private investigator during a hot summer in the Midlands, without alienating his fiance. Suddenly his services are in demand from the well-born (Christian Porphyry, scion of the local gentry who's accused of cheating at golf) and the shadowy (the local crime czar known as "King Rat"), and Joe is sweating from more than the ambient air temperature.

But in typical Joe fashion, he doesn't overthink things. Joe just follows his nose and does the next logical thing in front of him - in this case visiting Porphyry's exclusive golf club under a dubious cover created by the client and dealing with what happens next. Joe's up against some very resourceful characters from high society to low. But he's not without resources, and he pulls off a few surprises of his own.

One of these days I will re-read this book to look for examples of Reginald Hill's clever wordplay, which I'm sure are there and which I know I missed while following the flow of the narrative. It was a good read and a great escape.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So lightweight it almost floats away, August 27, 2008

By 

L. E. Cantrell (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Roar of the Butterflies (Hardcover)

The title of this book comes from a description of a golfer's woes by P. G. Wodehouse. This is one of the few books I know that seems lightweight when compared to any of Wodehouse's airy confections.

Most reader's probably know Reginald Hill from his excellent series about Superintendent (Fat Andy) Dalziel and his subordinate, the potentially high-flying Pascoe, who is steadily moving up in rank. If you are such a reader, forget all you know. Joe Sixsmith is neither a Dalziel nor a Pascoe. In fact, it's a bit hard for me to accept the notion that one man, Hill, actually wrote two such different series.

Sixsmith is not exactly a protagonist. He is a lucky drifter through the eddies and tides of the genre PI novel. He starts off in good approved form, sitting in his office without a client in sight and not doing much about that deplorable state. Into his office comes an unlikely client, who hires him and winds up the clockwork plot. A couple of hundred pages later, the ticking ends and we find Sixsmith triumphant, sort of, in his not too bright, not too active, lucky way.

It's fluff, but not bad fluff, although there is a melodramatic sequence near the end that applies a harder edge to the story than is absolutely necessary. Wodehouse could and did write crime stories that not only smiled but positively beamed from end to end. "The Roar of the Butterflies" would have been a better book if it, too, had smiled a little more.

This book offers a perfectly acceptable reading experience--provided that there is absolutely nothing else at hand. Three stars.

LEC/AM/8-08