About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

MIDNIGHT FUGUE
by Reginald Hill
Harper Collins, May 2009
400 pages
17.99 GBP
ISBN: 0007252706


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

You've got to hand it to Reginald Hill … Twenty four books into a series and a lot of writers would be phoning it in. Not Hill, though. He's endlessly inventive and each new book in the Dalziel and Pascoe saga sparkles like a bright new penny.

That's not to say there haven't been wobbles along the way. Dalziel's last outing, A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES, took a while to get going – but only because our intrepid author went for the device of using emails, spelling mistakes and all, to get his story motoring.

Hill's got a new trick up his sleeve in MIDNIGHT FUGUE as well – the action takes place over the course of 24 hours. It's not quite as frenetic as Jack Bauer and Co, and our heroes do get the chance to eat and go to the loo, but there's plenty going on to keep Mid-Yorkshire's finest out of mischief.

Gina Wolfe has come north to try to track down her missing husband. Her fianc้, Met copper Mick Purdy, reckons Dalziel should be able to help her out. But our man's still not firing on all cylinders after his injuries two books back. And there's a motley crew of people tussling over secrets from the past, including a Tory MP, his assistant, his dodgy businessman father, and a tabloid journalist.

Hill is a consummate storyteller who keeps a very tight hand on his cast. And he juggles the different plot threads with nonchalant ease. He teeters close to the edge on occasions with one or two of the eccentrics he introduces us to – but there's never the slightest danger of him losing his footing.

Perhaps the greatest strength of this superlative series is that Hill ensures his characters, as familiar now to us as a favourite sweater, never stagnate. In MIDNIGHT FUGUE – and whisper it quietly – Fat Andy actually looks human now and then. But this latest masterpiece confirms there's a great deal of life left in the old dog.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, September 2009

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]