Helpful Score: 2
This a the first in a very prolific series, where we can get to know Sergeant Peter Pascoe and Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, two police detectives in a small down to earth English town. I started reading the series somewhere in the middle, decided I wanted to read it from the beginning, and then had to hunt for this first book. These two main characters could not be more different from each other...thus they bring very different view points to every mystery they get handed. Dalziel is known as Fat Andy (among other, even less complimentary nicknames) and is old school and uncouth, but very brilliant for all that. Pascoe is a college graduate that often wonders what he is doing in this career, but every time realizes that it is more a calling for him than just a job.
This book starts off a little bit slow, and I have to admit that if this was the only one in the series I had read, I wouldn't have been as keen as I am about them. It is a very subtle introduction. But a good read nonetheless, if you get through the first 30 pages.
This book starts off a little bit slow, and I have to admit that if this was the only one in the series I had read, I wouldn't have been as keen as I am about them. It is a very subtle introduction. But a good read nonetheless, if you get through the first 30 pages.
One of the earliest Hills featuring Dalziel and Pascoe. Dalziel is as wonderfully vulgar as ever, and you keep looking for little signs that he "doesn't really mean it." As always, the setting is a detailed and wonderful sociological study of some corner of British life, in this case sports and life in a development. The victim is thoroughly awful, making you feel guilty about the title of the book, which invites you to agree that clubbing was what she needed.
