Rating: 
Summary: Sing, O Goddess...
Review: A departure for Hill: a book of pure fantasy, in the Innesian manner. Pascoe's wife Ellie finds herself threatened-by the Secret Service? By Colombian terrorists? By the IRA?-but copes by writing a parody of Homer in which Ulysses and Aeneas represent Dalziel and Pasoce. Entertainment abounds, although the plot is too wild and wheeling to really pass muster-which is what one may expect when the author weaves his plot around Cymbeline!
Franny Roote appears, only to cut his wrists. A pity he didn't do the job properly.
Rating: 
Summary: Convoluted
Review: Disjointed, convoluted, erratic--all come as a disappointment to Reginald Hill's fans who read this book thinking they are lapping up another Dalziel/Pascoe story. Perseverance will get the reader to the end of the book, with a "what's new" shrug of the sholders, and a feeling that Hill was impressed with his own cuteness and, as one reviewer says, "erudition". While obviously a side trip from the usual, this story needs to go back to the editor for tuning up. Disappointing!
Rating:
Summary: A Meandering pseudo-philosophical Novel
Review: Having read "Recalled to Life" and the fine "On Beulah Height," two in a large series of novels featuring the characters Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe, I had formed a very high opinion of Reginald Hill's ability to render a tale believable and to sustain a reader's interest through hundreds of pages of finely written prose.
It is hard for me to believe that "Arms and the Women" was written by the same man. It is not just that the characters are mostly women or that with a shift in central character to Pascoe's wife Ellie there is a change in style to suit a woman's perspective, there is a marked decline in the quality of the writing as well.
Though two relatively minor characters, Daphne Aldermann, a high society friend of Ellie's and to a lesser extent the eccentric Leftie activist Feenie Macullum manage some lively banter, the dialog for the most part is an endless string of overly creative and unlikely phrases. This is compounded by the fact that whereas at the beginning of the book it is only Mrs. Pascoe that seems gushingly effusive, the further you read the more all the characters seem tainted with her overly emotive wordiness.
The character Ellie Pascoe in this book is writing a book and passages from it are included. I came to dread the pages of italicized text that signaled another round of Ellie's schmaltzy writing style. She called it her "Comfort Blanket," and had Hill been trying to pass her off as an amateur writer I think it would have been fine, but I'm of the opinion that the amateur style he employed in Ellie's passages began to seep out into the pages of the wider novel and poison everything it came into contact with. Even an IRA terrorist came across less like a figure from real life and more like an IRA terrorist who'd been written into a romance novel. He exuded much more sensitivity and feminine feeling than seemed natural in a man who is supposed to have murdered people.
I found myself wondering if Hill's wife might have written the book. I didn't see the same level of professionalism that was apparent in the two earlier books I'd read. The characters were not clearly delineated. Dalziel, the most endearing of the characters in the earlier books I'd read, in the few places he appeared here was at times his old gruff self, but even he fell into droning on with stream of consciousness revelations that seemed to give him a feminine twist. The plot was idiotic rather than just unlikely. Ellie at times had omniscient understanding of characters she'd barely been introduced to. She'd come to the most unlikely conclusions about characters and events that read like a cheap short cut to giving the characters genuine depth through what they themselves did.
Perhaps what sustains a reader's interest and belief in the plausibility of a story is a finely balanced set of ingredients. If so, Mr. Hill has gotten the mix wrong in "Arms and the Women."
In the earlier books of his I'd read, I felt disappointed that the story came to an end. I forced myself to slog through to the end of this one mainly sustained by curiosity as to what had gone wrong with the writer.
Rating:
Summary: I could have done without Ellie's book
Review: I always enjoy a Dalziel and Pascoe. As a mystery, this one was good, albeit a little far-fetched. But I found the excerpts from Ellie's book annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Makes for very complicated reading!
Review: I am loathe to give Reginald Hill a 'bad grade', but if he were my student, he'd get one for this particular novel. I'd probably give him an A for effort, a B for unusual reliance on the Homerian stories (The Iliad etc.), a B for trying to understand women (which considering most guys flunk so this is really good!), and a C for plot devices, and a C- for confusion! As previous reviewers indicated, the reader often goes into the chapters on this particular book, and comes out the other end going "Huh?" I like not being able to determine exactly what is going on in the mystery. However, I like my reading to be straight forward, with a minimum of confusion. Hill tries too hard to be clever in this book (take my word for it, at least us Americans know you have better education then we do!). He flips from character to character too fast, and too awkwardly for the reader to assimilate. I actually got a kick out of Ellie Pascoe's 'Comfort Blanket'. Her need to find an outlet for her energy and her intelligence after nursing her daughter to health (as well as her understanding that her priorities have changed) are totally understandable. She's waiting to see whether she will start being a published writer...Hill should know all about that. I was disappointed that she didn't follow through with this story about a chance meeting by Aneas and Odysseus, done in a more modern linguistic style. Given that Homer and other writers for the time period wrote in formal language that was not usually used in conversational language, I could very well get involved in the fat Odyseus (who was obviously a take off on fat Andy Dalziel). Hill delves farther into the minds, psyches and lives of the women surrounding Dalziel and Pascoe. Did someone get on his case concerning being fair to the female gender? It's not absolutely necessary for him to abandon his usual protagonists, and cater to the feminist leanings of his readers. Just keep writing well, and most of us will be happy! Karen Sadler
Rating:
Summary: Read some other book of the series first...
Review: If there is something that remains to be written, that is a bad Dalziel-Pascoe book. Those of us who have become fans of Hill's intricate and witty style will not necessarily be disappointed by this latest entry. In my own personal case, however, I doubt that this one will be counted among my favorites. It is true that there is not enough of Dalziel, that most loveable of all fiction detectives (his appearance under the guise of Odysseus, with Pascoe as Aeneas, in Ellie Pascoe's mock novel is not nearly enough), but the real problem, I think, is the plot itself, which is more overwrought than complicated, and not nearly as interesting as one has got to expect from this series. Also, I guess newcomers will be totally bewildered, not only because it is taken for granted that you already know the main characters very well, but also, characters from previous books show up unannounced, and even us followers of the series can't remember all of them (I know at least that I don't). I am only grateful that this was not the first book in the series I've ever read, because I don't think I would have been tempted to follow it, and that would be my loss! To those of you who have never heard of Dalziel and Pascoe, please read first some other book in the series, such as On Beulah Height, Deadheads or Recalled to Life.
Rating: 
Summary: The best so far
Review: In my opinion this is the best so far of the Dalziel and Pascoe novels. The style is slightly different from usual but, unlike the reviewer who thought the book "convoluted", I would say the book is pieced together in a pleasing and masterful way. Right up to the very last "two words" the book did an excellent job of entertaining me and the focus on Ellie is done very well, especially her story within the story. If you want to be entertained then this book should do the trick.
Rating:
Summary: A Meandering pseudo-philosophical Novel
Review: It is really too bad that Mr. Hill has decided to forsake mystery/crime fiction writing for a sloppy soup of boring irony, lampooning of the genre which has made him rich, and "phantasmogorical" plot elements. His last 5 or 6 novels have yielded only two good stories: Pictures of Perfection and the phenonmenal Dialogues of the Dead--where his imagination strikes gold. Arms is quite simply a book with lots of feckless deviations from the ordinary crime novel, deviations like Ellie's ancient classic writing that bores. Some of the characters are well-drawn: her upper class friend, Ivor, and most of the time Dalziel. Pascoe is more wimpy than usual, without anything to redeem his fatuous "worshipping" of his trampoline bouncing wife. The plot muddles along. Kelly should have turned out to be a villain. The end is so contrived that Mr. Hill must be embarrased. P.C. acknowledgement of the courage and resourcefullness of women should be left to other authors who don't have as their "star" the delightfully paradign of anti-p.c., Dalziel. Hill's moderate liberalism (American political definition) usually is trumped by his intelligence that just won't let him turn into a full-blown tree-hugging, feminist, Save the Country side simp--his gay element is handled carefully without turning into sermonizing. Hill should consider sending Ellie and Peter on a world-wide tour and let Wieldy and some new station blood like hat, Ivor and a young boorish rival for Dalziel's throne of messy philistine king. Anyway Pascoe's mushy, uncritical love for Ellie needs to be changed. Pascoe needs to fall in love with someone else and leave Ellie to her milquetoast feminism. Perhaps they'll get back together, but hopefully not. Arms has some fine writing, but the horridly unrealistic, hyper-contrived ending, the computer nerd and no betrayls by Kelly or her grandmas and also Ellie's writing about Odysseus and Aenaa was cloying, grating, producing perhaps Hill's worst book--(for me it is the worst book). Bring in a female character to replace Peter, one who clashes with the fat man, is bisexual, and hates rural life. Not a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put it down; glad to see Ellie take center stage
Review: Maybe I'm biased because I enjoy Mr. Hill's novels so much as a whole. What I like best about this series is the way the writing complements the characters' personalities (literary and academic, and very, very human and realistic). For me, the weaving of three novels was intriguing--even the title is evocative (refer to George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man"). As for the characters, I found them believable. I also feel like I know more about the main characters' psyches with every novel Hill writes (in this series). I think the unexpected events in the main plot that may seem like coincidence help build excitement. I wouldn't recommend this book as an introduction to the Dalziel and Pascoe stories, but I highly recommend it to fans who have some familiarity with them.
Rating:
Summary: Kudos to the Elliad
Review: Picking up a new Dalziel/Pascoe mystery can be doubly rewarding. First, it's guaranteed that I'll like the writing and the central characters, because I always have. But sometimes Hill throws in a bonus - an element you wouldn't expect to find that weaves through the main plot with illuminating results. This time it's shades of Homer. (Not Simpson - the other guy, although the prospect of Andy hoisting a few Duffs with Bart's dad has definite appeal.) The story begins with glimpses into several unidentified characters' minds. Who are these people? What are they going on about? It's confusing but not frustrating because we know Hill will ultimately lock all the puzzle pieces into place and show us the big picture. This time it's downright epic with the raging sea playing one of its most pivotal roles since the Odyssey, and the women finding resources that would have made Aeschylus proud. Not that Dalziel and Pascal are ever far away. When they're not on stage as themselves, they're there in the characters of Odysseus and Aeneas, as written by Ellie with perception, humor and surprising (in one case) affection. Hill can get inside the minds of not only his heroes - but women, children, Greeks, cats, killers, and thankfully readers.
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