a view through my own eyes

A Clubbable Woman
An April Shroud
Deadheads
Arms and the Women
Death of Dalziel

Recently I have had a phase of reading Dalziel and Pascoe novels. I am not going to give a synopsis as they can be gleaned from the back covers of the books or Amazon. However over the time period that these were written, the first “A clubbable woman” was a straight forward who/why dunnit and the last more of a why dunnit/thriller. If anything this demonstrates Hill’s desire to to go beyond a traditional who dunnit and explore different ways that he can utilise his characters. For example in the first book Dalziel and Pascoe work together, the second is mainly Daziel (Pascoe is away), the third focusses backwards on who dunnit and why, the fourth is more about Pascoe’s wife and the last about Pascoe himself. If anything this demonstrates to me Hill’s development of the characters that he has created and by deliberately taking them and him out of their comfort zones.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of these, the weakest by a long way, however has to be Arms and the Women as it is not a who dunnit by any means, nor a why dunnit, it is most definately a thriller and I am not entirely certain that Hill succeeds in that format.