- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; (Reissue) edition (3 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006490115
- ISBN-13: 978-0006490111
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 285,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘So far out in front that he need not bother looking over his shoulder’
Sunday Telegraph
‘An author at his formidable best’
Frances Hegarty, Mail on Sunday
Product Description
For suspense, ingenuity and sheer comic effrontery this takes the absolute, appetizing biscuit’ Sunday Times
High in the Mid-Yorkshire dales stand the pretty village of Enscombe, proud survivor of all that history has thrown at it. But now market forces mass at the gates and the old way of life seems to be changing fast. The Law can do little to stop the ever-growing crimes against tradition, but when a policeman goes missing DCI Pascoe gets worried. Andy Dalziel thinks he’s overreacting until the normally phlegmatic Sergeant Wield shows signs of changing his first impressions of village life.
Over two eventful days a new pattern emerges, of lust and lying, of family feuds and ancient injuries, of frustrated desires and unbalanced minds. Finally, inevitably, everything comes to a bloody climax at the Squire’s Reckoning, when the villagers gather each Lady Day to feast and pay old debts…and not even the presence of the Mid-Yorkshire CID trio can change the course of history…
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It might seem odd to say a police mystery story is delightful and happy, but this one certainly is. I have seen the Dalziel and Pascoe movies on TV and think them excellent, but the books - especially this one - have an edge. Wield is my favourite character, and his role is much reduced in the TV movies.
The plot is a clever interweaving of scenes and strands, and almost no one and nothing is the way it seems. First impressions mean little, and everyone is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. It's delightful! "Pictures of Perfection" also manages one of the funniest love scenes I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
On the believeability scale I'd have to rate this low but then I don't read stories to believe them. I believe real life (sometimes unfortunately) and I reckon we need more happy, literate-but-not-Literary books like this one.
I was truly sorry to turn the last page. I wanted more.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Reginald Hill has a thing for literary allusion. PICTURES OF PERFECTION not only owes its title and its epigraphs to Jane Austen, but also its very setting, the village of Enscombe (from Austen's EMMA). As Hill thus alerts us, we are being transported from the usual Dalziel and Pascoe round into social comedy--albeit comedy leavened with a sharp dash of satire, mostly directed against Thatcherism. The result is an affectionate parody of both the English village mystery--those villages have such remarkable mortality rates, do they not?--and Austen herself. Is it reading too much into the book to see the Scudamore sisters re-enacting SENSE AND SENSIBILITY? We certainly aren't overrreading when, like several other Hill fans on the 'net, we notice that the novel retells PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, in the shape of Sergeant Wield--did someone suggest to Hill that the "lonely gay man thing" was getting a bit old?--and...well, you'll see. And the red herring narrative, which some have found perhaps understandably exasperating, also hearkens back to Austen: NORTHANGER ABBEY, featuring a reader who looks for the Gothic where it isn't to be found. Appropriately, everything ends in marriage (or its equivalent). The downside of all this, of course, is that the novel does pall a bit if you haven't read a lot of Austen, and even if you have, the allusiveness can seem cloying at times. Overall, however, this is an often hilarious, and on occasion touching, read.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Pictures of Perfection shows Hill at his most inventive - a rich pastiche of the Golden Age Crime novels, lots of fun allusions to Jane Austen and great characters. Hill has shown his versatility throughout the series of novels with this his lightest frothiest novel. Okay so it's a slightly silly romp rather than a dour exploration of criminality but it's done with style. Some may feel it's not your typical Hill novel, but in my view Hill's flexiblity with style is what makes him such an interesting writer.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant!
Not a detective novel in the truest sense but absolutely brilliant and heartwarming, beautifully plotted and full of eccentric and memorable characters. One to read and re- read.
Published 10 months ago by J Surrey
Not what I expected!
This was my first time with Dalziel and Pascoe. Don't be put off by the historical references. The story begins with a bang, settles into bucholic bungling and entertains. Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2010 by A. J. Peach
Very possibly the worst book i have ever read.
...The first chapter is brilliantly exciting, therefore capturing your attention for about 100 pages until you realise that nothing is going to happen! Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2001
Enjoyable but not very mysterious!
It has been interesting to watch Wield's character becoming deeper and more complex as this series of books develops and here it is Wieldy that takes centre stage. Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2000 by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
Hill Is Out of Focus with "Pictures of Perfection"
"It is the Day of Reckoning." Thus begins what is perhaps one of the most effective narrative hooks around. Read more
Published on 21 May 1999
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