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THE WOODCUTTER
by Reginald Hill
Doubleday Canada, November 2010
528 pages
$32.95 CAD
ISBN: 0385669356


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

If there is one thing that can be said about Reginald Hill, it is that he never fails to surprise. Although his Dalziel/Pascoe series by necessity features repeat appearances on the part of a core group of characters, the books themselves take various and wondrous forms. Likewise, this stand-alone thriller is not quite like anything of Hill's I have read before (or like anyone else, either for that matter.)

In essence, THE WOODCUTTER is a kind of fairy tale. Its protagonist, Wilf (Wolf) Hadda, is the son of the head forester on a substantial Cumbrian estate. As a teenager, he fell head over heels in love with the daughter of the manor, Imogen, who, when their affair is discovered, sends him packing with instructions not to return until he has acquired wealth, education, and a proper accent. Thus the modern-day princess sets the peasant three impossible tasks, tasks he fulfills, though not until after a mysterious ten-year gap in his CV. He returns, and as happens in fairy tales, they marry but unlike the mythic pattern, not happily ever after.

It's at this point that a second powerful myth takes over - the fall of the hero, brought down by a tragic flaw, the weakness of his strength. At the top of his form, Wolf awakes one morning to a Fraud Squad raid, followed by charges of possession and sale of child pornography. Proclaiming his innocence and believing that only he can prove it, he makes an ill-advised attempt to escape, winding up under a bus and near death. His story resumes some seven years later as Wolf, in prison, finally consents to psychiatric therapy and ultimately achieves a conditional release from jail. At this point, the suspense is generated not by the question of whether Wolf is indeed a paedophile, but of what he will do now that he is out of prison. After all, his tragic flaw has been a rash resort to immediate, often violent action.

All this might make someone unfamiliar with Hill's work anticipate a heavy literary novel, fraught with symbol and metaphor. But THE WOODCUTTER, like most of Hill's other novels, is witty, compelling, and suspenseful. Indeed there are his typical sly literary references for those who care to pick them up, but the reader can miss the lot and still be happily engrossed in this tale of a Wolf who might be a villain, an innocent man, or something in between.

The psychological element, the gradual reveal of character, is at the centre of this novel, of course, but something else that struck me was Hill's loving, elegant celebration of the beauties of his native Cumbria, especially in winter. THE WOODCUTTER forsakes Dalziel and Pascoe's Yorkshire for the country of Hill's boyhood and his evocation of its natural loveliness is striking.

Though the novel is over 500 pages long, I had difficulty putting it down. I've had some serious reservations about certain of Hill's previous stand-alones, but very few about THE WOODCUTTER. True, neither Dalziel, Pascoe, nor Wield make any sort of appearance, but this book will certainly do very nicely until they appear once more.

§ Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal.

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, December 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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