Good Morning, Midnight

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Summary: Dalziel and Pascal police procedural
Review: A decade ago a man committed suicide in the Moscow House in Yorkshire. Now his son Pal Maciver kills himself in the same place in the same manner while his spouse Sue Lynn was playing patient-doctor in the bed of her lover Tom Lockridge. Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascal head the inquiries into what is obvious, a locked door suicide.

As the police investigate, Andy seems to be thinking with his wrong head as he appears to compromise the case by his relationship with Kay Kafta, widow of Maciver the father and stepmother to Maciver the son. Even stranger is that Andy led the inquiries into the father's suicide. As the international corporate world and government spies intersect the investigation, Peter worries that Andy is covering up the working of a killing feline due to desire for the merry widow.

GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT is an entertaining Dalziel and Pascal police procedural more for their battling (seem like a married couple) than the actual investigation. Peter is very concerned that Andy has stepped over the ethics line to protect Kay and wonders if the DS did the same ten years ago. This is a terrific British cop series with the investigations always fun to follow, but this time especially pleasurable is when the lead couple fuss, fight, and fume.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Dalziel and Pascoe at the top of their game
Review: British award-winner Hill delivers another witty and delightful Dalziel and Pascoe novel, his 21st. An irascible force of nature, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel seems uncharacteristically incurious about the peculiar suicide of antiques dealer Pal Maciver, ordering Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe to write it off without further investigation. Which Pascoe would have been inclined to do - room locked from the inside, toe through shotgun trigger guard - but for Dalziel's suspicious complacency.

Now, the reader knows, as the police do not, that Maciver went to considerable trouble to stage his suicide as a murder, framing his hated stepmother, and that only careful investigation would turn up the clues he had planted. His suicide is a replica of his father's a decade before, right down to the volume of Emily Dickinson poems open on his desk.

These were a favorite of the American stepmother, Kay, now Kafka, married to Tony Kafka, head of the munitions company that swallowed the Maciver family business all those years ago. It's Kay whom Dalziel seems to be protecting, an enigma who may be as calculating as she is beguiling, though she has the fat man's total confidence.

Point of view switches among the various members of the police team (though never Dalziel; that would blunt his mystique), the family, and the spooks surrounding Kafka's business. The plot thickens as it goes, the by-play among the cops remains witty and shrewd (vaguely like a British version of McBain's 87th precinct), the characters' interactions are complex and satisfyingly underhanded and Hill delivers a sharp twist at the end that settles some questions while raising a host of new ones. Another winner from a writer who just keeps getting better.

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Summary: Ellie needs help.
Review: I like the series but Ellie Pascoe gets on my nerves. The ultra feminist tolerates serial attempted rape from a woman and calls her a friend. Would she put up with such behavior from a man?

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Summary: Dalziel and Pascoe meet all expectations
Review: In my view, Reginald Hill is the most literate and witty of all current writers of police procedurals. Dalziel and Pascoe are a great pair as the gruff bearlike Dalziel plays off "college boy" Pascoe. Gay Sgt Weld and PC Shirley Novello round out the team as they unravel a complex plot. Each of the numerous players here is a distinct and memorable personality. Highly recommended.

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Summary: Mid-Yorkshire CID does it again
Review: In this latest entry in the long-running Dalziel and Pascoe series, Hill leaves the "literary" plots of the last two novels and returns to regular chapter titles, without the amazingly relevant quotes that preceded chapters in these works (although Emily Dickinson's poetry does give the book its title and figures into the plot in a minor way).

Fans of the series won't be disappointed. Having said that, I don't feel that GMM is quite up there with the best of the series, like On Beulah Height and Bones and Silence. Still, just when I think I might tire of reading another Dalziel and Pascoe story and would rather read something else, I find myself very interested in the plot and caring about the characters again. Hill is so insightful psychologically that it is always a delight to read the thoughts of his characters. Even when you don't agree with his political views (which certainly creep in), you have to respect his honesty and the fact that Hill really seems to be able to find something likeable or at least interesting in almost every character (including Dalziel, who never sounds like as good a character as he really is when I describe him to my wife).

So be a clever clogs and enjoy the funny buggers in GMM.

Rating:
Summary: Clever plot
Review: The body of local big-shot Pal Maciver is found in a locked room with half of his head blown off and with a number of deliberately placed clues pointing towards his hated step mother, Kay Kafka. Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is an old friend of Kay so chooses to direct the investigation from the rear, leaving his off-sider, DCI Peter Pascoe to front the team. The strange and very involved past histories of Pal, his two sisters and Kay, their stepmother, become evident, as does the fact that the killing exactly copies the suicide of Pals' father, 10 years previously.
I found this to be an immensely readable book, full of suspense and with enough twists and turns to keep the reader glued to it well into the small hours.