Arms and the Women (Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Still writing for readers
Review: The latest from Reginald Hill. He's managed to avoid the trap of seeing everything throught the prism of the television series and is still writing for readers. The novel is a complex weaving of a number of different threads and contains a delightful story within a story written by Ellie Pascoe. Although the central male characters are not so much of a presence in the main story their characters are transmuted to the characters in Ellie's stories so readers can still get their fix of the banter between "Dalziel and Pascoe". In the manner of many writers of series novels Hill is obviously becoming more interested in the characters themselves rather than the crime and that is where the focus of this book is. Echoes exist from the previous novel in the series but it is not necessary to have read it to enjoy this book. Which I certainly did.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Wading Through
Review: The opening chapters of Hill's latest Dalziel & Pascoe are an onslaught much like the storm at the close of the book. People and plots come howling in from all directions. I felt rather "gobsmacked" by all of it, but I kept on slogging through until it began to come together into a cohesive story.

Hill has the extraordinary ability to shift consciousness from one character to the next, and I suppose that's what kept me off balance. From Ellie Pascoe, to DC Novello, to the writer "Spelt from Sybil's Leaves," Hill proves that he understands the insides of people, the private side they keep to themselves. This novel is told primarily from the perspective of the women who drive it forward. Hill grasps the confusion of midlife, the roles of wife and mother, the longing for belonging of singlehood. After these things, the mystery plot itself is only a frame on which to project the people.

While Ellie Pascoe thwarts an attempted abduction, she leads the rest of the cast on an odyssey as she continues to seek comfort and meaning in her life. That we end up in a "cleansing" storm at the end of these Herculean labors is fitting.