Contortuplicated sesquipedalianism (Dialogues of the Dead - Reginald Hill)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Dialogues of the Dead - Reginald Hill
Date:	17/03/02 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of murders (and long words) to puzzle over.

Disadvantages: Dalziel wears a kilt and goes dancing.

Now that Inspector Morse is dead, it looks like all the fictional serial killers in the country have had to move oop North. But if they can't be bottomed to go all the way to Scotland to take on Inspector Rebus, they can always stop in mid-Yaarrkshire and tangle with Dalziel and Pascoe.

"Dialogues of the Dead" is the eighteenth case for Dalziel and Pascoe, (the first - "A Clubbable Woman" - was published way back in 1970.)

Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced "D-L") also known as 'The Fat Man' (although perhaps not to his face) is a plain-speaking (blunt) Yorkshireman, who almost certainly knows a lot more than he lets on.
He doesn't really do much in this novel, other than making disparaging remarks. In his vocabulary, the Forensic Medical Examiner is "yon sodding quack" and academics and psychiatrists are "arty-farty crap merchants." He's none too impressed by over-educated people. Well he ought to be, because there's a highly educated killer on the loose...

A strange illuminated manuscript, submitted to the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette is presumed to be an entry for the short story competition that they are running. It describes the accidental death of an AA man (that's AA as in Automobile Association) which appears to be based on a real incident, except that the manuscript arrived before the details are reported. And then a second manuscript arrives - this time including personal details about a bazouki player and his 'accidental' death in a motorbike crash.

Dalziel's long-term partner in crime-solving, Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe gets an unpleasant surprise when he unexpectedly bumps into an old acquaintance called Franny Roote (who he put inside some years earlier) and immediately has a prime suspect. But he has to tread very carefully - the last time their paths crossed it resulted in a not-very-credible suicide attempt b
y Roote; Pascoe was lucky to avoid a complaint of harrassment. Roote is now a student at mid-Yorkshire University, and is writing a thesis on revenge and retribution in English drama. His tutor, Dr. Sam Johnson (!) is a friend of Ellie - Pascoe's (soon-to-be-published) writer wife.

Are you with me so far?

New boy, Detective Constable 'Hat' Bowler (whose first name is Ethelbert, believe it or not, although why parents would name a child after a cartoon tiger I can't imagine) reckons that a more likely suspect is the local author Charley Penn. Penn, who is penning a tome on Heine, is a regular at the library where staff are sifting through the short-story competition entries, and he and his old school-chum, librarian Dick Dee, play a strange word game they have devised, loosely based on Scrabble® which they call 'Paronomania'. The title being a cross between the words 'paronomasia' (meaning a play on words) and 'mania'...

An ambitious BBC presenter and a fat local councillor are bumped off next, the councillor uttering what sounds like "Rosebud" just before he croaks. A famous last word or a red herring? Who is the Wordman, and how is he choosing his victims? Could it be the dangerously highbrow Dr. Johnson? Or the creepy Roote? Surely Charley Penn and Dick Dee's game must be significant? And then there's old D.I. George Headingley, who's about to retire - he has something to hide as well. But is it a motive for murder? Could it be the nice young lady librarian, D.C. Bowler tries to chat up at every opportunity? Could it be Henry, the mild-mannered janitor? Phooey.

My suspect dropped dead about half-way through, as always.
But rather considerately, Hill immediately offers up another prime suspect - one who everyone, including the police, appear to have overlooked.

In the end, and with the benefit of hindsight of course, it's blatently obvious who the Wo
rdman is. In fact Reg Hill couldn't have made it more obvious if he had put the killer's name in the title! But that doesn't mean the ending isn't surprising, because it is. And a very satisfying ending it is too, because it's not quite the solution you expect from a crime novel.

If you're a wordy person who likes a puzzling whodunnit you'll enjoy Dialogues of the Dead. I don't think it would work very well on TV though.
Oh, and by the way, I've used several terminological inexactitudes during this opinion to give you a bum steer. Ha! ;-)


For more information about Reginald Hill's Dalziel & Pascoe novels see:

http://www.twbooks.co.uk/crimescene/rhillme.ht ml


¶ Paperback: £6.99 ¶ ISBN: 0006512887 ¶ pp 558 ¶
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