Death's Jest-Book: Featuring Dalziel and Pascoe (A Dalziel & Pascoe Novel) [Paperback]

‘Few writers in the genre today have Hill’s gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace’ Donna Leon

‘The finest male English contemporary crime writer’ Val McDermid

‘Reginald Hill’s novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories intertwining’
Ian Rankin

Reginald Hill’s best-selling duo, Dalziel and Pascoe, return in this brilliant, complex and ultimately moving crime novel: ‘Reginald Hill is probably the best living crime writer in the English-speaking world’ – Independent

In T.L. Beddoes’ play Death’s Jest-Book, the dead won’t lie still in the grave and the living often wish they could. And Reginald Hill’s novel is much the same – except perhaps for a few more jests.

The dead-pan joker, Franny Roote, is working on his dead friend’s unfinished biography of Beddoes, and with unfinished business between himself and DCI Pascoe to deal with as well. Three times Pascoe has been wrong about Roote. This time he’s determined to leave no grave-stone unturned as he tries to prove that the ex-con and aspiring academic is mad, bad and dangerous to know. Meanwhile, Edgar Wield, Quixote-like, rides to the rescue of a child in danger, and finds he’s got a rent-boy under his wing. In return, the boy tips him off about the heist of a pricesless treasure, and soon Wieldy’s torn between protecting the boy and doing his duty.

His superiors might have worries, but DC Hat Bowler’s looking forward to a blissful New Year with the girl of his dreams. The trouble is that that girl is Rye Pomona and her dreams are filled with a horror too terrible to tell – even though Charley Penn throws all his energies into trying to do exactly that.

And over all this activity broods the huge form of Mid-Yorkshire CID’s First Mover, DS Andy Dalziel. As trouble builds, the Fat Man discovers (as many deities before him) that omniscience can be more trouble than its worth, and that sometimes all omnipotence means is that you can have any colour you like, as long as it’s black.

"The best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world"
'Independent'

Three times DCI Pascoe has wrongly accused dead-pan joker Franny Roote. This time he's determined to leave no gravestone unturned as he tries to prove that the ex-con and aspiring academic is mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Meanwhile Edgar Wield rides to the rescue of a child in danger, only to find he's got a rent boy with a priceless secret under his wing. DC Bowler is looking forward to a blissful New Year with the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, her dreams are filled with a horror too terrible to tell…

And over all this activity broods the huge form of DS Andy Dalziel. As trouble builds, the Fat Man discovers (as many deities before him) that omniscience can be more trouble than it's worth.

"It's clever, involving and admirably resolved. No one does it better than Hill"
'Guardian'

"The climax is superb, frightening and surprising, and everything falls into place brilliantly"
'The Times'

Reginald Hill is a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his outstanding crime novels featuring Dalziel and Pascoe, ‘the best detective duo on the scene bar none’ (Daily Telegraph). His writing career began with the publication of A Clubbable Woman (1970), which introduced Chief Superintendent Andy Dalziel and DS Peter Pascoe. With their subsequent appearances Reginald Hill has won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers’ Assocation Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to the genre.