- Paperback: 500 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; (Reissue) edition (3 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006479944
- ISBN-13: 978-0006479949
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 431,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘These novels last, like a grand malt whisky’
Mail on Sunday
‘One of Britain’s most consistently excellent crime novelists’
The Times
‘One of the masters of the modern police procedural’
Sunday Telegraph
Product Description
‘Hill’s wit is the constant, ironic foil to his vision, and to call this a mere crime novel is to say Everest is a nice little hill’ Frances Hegarty, Mail on Sunday
A ravaged wood, a man in uniform long dead – this is not a World War One battlefield, but Wanwood House, a pharmaceutical research centre.
Peter Pascoe attends his grandmother’s funeral, and scattering her ashes leads him too into wartorn woods in search of his great-grandfather who fought and died in Passchendaele.
Seeing the wood for the trees is the problem for Andy Dalziel when he finds himself fancying an animal rights activist, depite her possible complicity in a murderous assault and her appalling taste in whisky.
A mind-bending puzzle leading us on the wild side of the pastoral.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are already familiar with Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series, recommending this one is not going to be a hard sell. If not, check this out and discover one of the contemporary masters of the crime novel.
This is an ambitious work; Hill clearly intends to transcend the police procedural genre, and includes a parallel story set in the ghastly killing fields of Passchendaele in the Great War that dovetails with the present-day police investigation that is the nominal subject of the book. It must be said that the interwoven story of Pascoe's ancestor (who shares his name) strains credulity; it's a literary construct that doesn't really come off.
But who cares? Hill as a writer is otherwise at the top of his game. It's full of witty dialogue (if only people in life -- myself included -- could set off such a string of verbal firecrackers, how much more entertaining our daily round would be!). Dalziel's Yorkshire dialect is a constant source of delight: I hope expressions like "nowt," "tha's," "lass," et al. aren't dying out. And as usual, the characters, especially the detectives and Pascoe's wife Ellie, are drawn in psychological depth.
The novel can be enjoyed as pure entertainment. But, notwithstanding the parallel story's unlikelihood, it offers a window into the ungodly horrors of life in the trenches in 1917 and the savagery of military "justice" in the British army of the time.
Format:Paperback
I've been working my way randomly through the terrific Dalziel and Pascoe series so this review may seem a little late and a bit redundant for this 1996 novel. Nonetheless, "The Wood Beyond" is good enough to rate continuing plaudits from generations (even) of readers.
Author Reginald Hill is as skilled as they come in creating colorful characters and intricate and multidimensional plots. "The Wood Beyond" has both in spades, but particularly a story line to rival the best of Hills' other work and far out in front of the average mystery potboiler. "The Wood Beyond" takes both Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe into deeply personal territory as the book examines a modern crime linked to a terrible injustice that took place before, during and after World War I. Indeed, Hill has laudably climbed on a soapbox here to once more expose in the most articulate way how senseless a slaughter that conflict it was.
"The Wood Beyond" gives the series principals Dalziel, Peter Pascoe, Ellie Pascoe, and Edgar Wield plenty of personal time while unwinding the mystery of a body found while animal rights activists are invading a medical research facility on a liberation mission. The story will eventually uncover corporate misdeeds, additional murders and mayhem and a major shock for DCI Pascoe relating to his family history.
This is one of Hill's best and mysteries don't get much better than that. Highly recommended.
Author Reginald Hill is as skilled as they come in creating colorful characters and intricate and multidimensional plots. "The Wood Beyond" has both in spades, but particularly a story line to rival the best of Hills' other work and far out in front of the average mystery potboiler. "The Wood Beyond" takes both Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe into deeply personal territory as the book examines a modern crime linked to a terrible injustice that took place before, during and after World War I. Indeed, Hill has laudably climbed on a soapbox here to once more expose in the most articulate way how senseless a slaughter that conflict it was.
"The Wood Beyond" gives the series principals Dalziel, Peter Pascoe, Ellie Pascoe, and Edgar Wield plenty of personal time while unwinding the mystery of a body found while animal rights activists are invading a medical research facility on a liberation mission. The story will eventually uncover corporate misdeeds, additional murders and mayhem and a major shock for DCI Pascoe relating to his family history.
This is one of Hill's best and mysteries don't get much better than that. Highly recommended.
Format:Paperback
I'm getting to really love the characters in these books and care about them as if they were friends. Poor old Pascoe tends to get some stick, though, both physical and mental, especially in this one. I'm really enjoying these mid-period novels and just goes to show how characters develop over time.
I love the literary allusions and loved the relationship between Dalziel and Cap Marvell, despite her taste in whisky. Yes, the WW1 connections strain credulity, but this is a novel not non-fiction.
I love the literary allusions and loved the relationship between Dalziel and Cap Marvell, despite her taste in whisky. Yes, the WW1 connections strain credulity, but this is a novel not non-fiction.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Crime Novel
Have bought the entire Dalziel and Pascoe series for husband who enjoys the stories and characters.
Published on 6 Jan 2010 by Mrs. S. J. Hodgson
Well written but prepare to have your credibility stretched
This was very interesting and I enjoyed the way that Hill juxtaposes the images of the war torn trenches and the modern day wasteland where the body is found. Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2000 by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
Past and present merge into a brilliant melange of mysteries
Hill once again takes us into the world of Daziel and Pascoe, the two policemen from mid-Yorkshire who are as different in their personalities and modus operandi as they are... Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2000
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