Rating: 
Summary: excellent
Review: This book is very well-written and I highly recommend it. The plot will keep you guessing to the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast and human
Review: This is my first written contact with Dalziel and Pascoe of tv fame and it certainly won't be my last. When an animal rights group swarms over a scientific complex, human bones are found in a swampy area, giving the police an extra reason to probe deeply into the goings on of the pharmaceutical company who run the place. Mr.Hill is an extremely erudite writer with a splendid command of the English language..it will also help my vocabulary as I have to keep the Oxford at hand to keep up with him. This story returns frequently to the French battlefields of WW1 via the diaries of Pascoe's grandfather who was shot for desertion after a ruling by a kangaroo court, so this connection injects a very personal touch, linking Pascoe with the present case through past generations.
Rating:
Summary: Ever wondered about the name?
Review: This is one of Hill's better Dalziel and Pascoe novels, marred only by the author's continued insistence on showing off his extensive knowledge of the English language. It may be heresy, but I rather prefer the TV adaptations, which tighten and speed things up a bit while keeping the essence.Ever wondered why Dalziel's name is pronounced "De-ell"? It's a Scottish surname. At one point in the series we are told he was born and brought up in Yorkshire of Scottish parents (now there's a nature-nurture mix to conjure with - growing up in Scotland I was told that a Yorkshireman was really just a Scotsman with the generosity removed!). In the original Gaelic the name has a character that early typographers though looked like a "z" and rendered it so in print, even though it was not pronounced like that. Other Scottish surnames have undergone a similar fate - Menzies should actually be prounced "Ming-iss" and still is, in Scotland.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull and Lacks either humor or suspense
Review: This novel is very disappointing. Pascoe's invovlement with his forebears just doesn't make for even marginally compelling fiction. The environmental aspect is doubly disappointing because it reveals a political correctness, which we knew Hill felt close to his "soul", but had wisely jettisoned (except for Wieldy), and Hill tries to have his cake and eat it too. He presents environmentalism as a positive good, but also presents it in such a way that it comes across as absurd. Dalziel is depicted callowly (Was he in the novel?) NO way in world that FAt Andy would go for the girl Hill has chosen for her. Finally, the novel is shrouded in "fog" (miasma) I realize Hill was aiming for something special, but for this reader he missed wildly.
| 
