The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Blunt Force Trauma

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme has reached the second stop of this year’s treacherous journey and I’m pleased to say that so far, we’re all safe. Thanks to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for tending to all of our travel details.

Today we’ve reached B’s B & B and as soon as I’ve settled in I’m going to put my hard hat on because my contribution for this stop is blunt force trauma. Not all crime fictional murderers are skilled with guns, have knives, or are strong enough to overpower a victim. But add in a heavy rock, a cricket bat or another such weapon and someone can commit murder with no special background. That’s possibly why so much crime fiction involves blunt force trauma. Here are just a few examples; I’m quite sure you can think of lots more than I could.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia, Hercule Poirot is on his way from the Middle East back to London when he is persuaded to change his plans and investigate the murder of Louise Leidner. She and her husband, noted archaeologist Eric Leidner, are with a dig team a few hours from Baghdad. Louise herself is not much interested in the actual dig although she’s certainly intelligent enough to follow the team’s progress. Still, all goes more or less smoothly until she starts to see hands tapping at her window and strange faces peeking in. Leidner hires a nurse Amy Leatheran to look after his wife and allay her fears. Soon enough, Leatheran finds out that there are solid reasons for those fears. Louise Leidner was married before, and always believed that her first husband died, shot as a spy after World War I. But she’s been receiving threatening letters that seem to come from her first husband. Now she’s in fear of her life, and her worst fears are realised one afternoon when she is bludgeoned in her bedroom. As Poirot looks into the case, he discovers that Louise was a much more complex person that it seemed on the surface, and that more than one person had a good motive for murder.

Peter Robinson’s A Dedicated Man also deals with a case of blunt force trauma. Harry Steadman is an avid historian and a skilled archaeologist. When he can manage it financially, he and his wife Emma move to Yorkshire where it is Steadman’s goal to excavate the Roman ruins in the area. He’s excited about this possibility and waiting for all the necessary permissions. Then he’s bludgeoned to death one night and his body is found the next morning. DCI Alan Banks and his team begin their investigation. They’re slowly finding out what sort of person Steadman was, who his friends, rivals and so on were and what his life was like when there’s another murder. Now the team has to find out who would have wanted or needed to kill both victims. It turns out that both incidents are related to events in Steadman’s past and to relationships among the people in his life.

There’s also an effective use of blunt force trauma in Reginald Hill’s A Clubbable Woman, the first in his Dalziel and Pascoe series. In that novel, local rugby player Sam Connon takes a beating during a match and comes home with a concussion. He makes his way upstairs and falls into a deep sleep. When he wakes, he discovers that his wife Mary’s been bludgeoned in their own home. Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Sergeant Peter Pascoe investigate the case. The first and most likely suspect is of course Connon himself. He can’t really account for his time and as it turns out he had a motive. But Dalziel isn’t at all sure the case is that simple. So he and Pascoe continue to look into it. They find that matters are indeed a lot more complicated than it seemed on the surface, and that several other people, including members of Connon’s own rugby club, could have killed the victim.

Vicki Delany’s Winter of Secrets begins with a car accident during which Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth and Ewan Williams’ rented SUV skids on some ice and plunges into the Upper Kootenay River. Constable Moonlight ‘Molly’ Smith of the Trafalgar City Police takes the assignment and goes to the scene. When the SUV is pulled out, it’s immediately clear that both young men are dead and everyone thinks at first that both died in the plunge into the river. But forensic results tell a very different story. Wyatt-Yarmouth did indeed die as a result of the accident. But Williams was dead for several hours by the time the SUV went into the river. What’s more, his body shows evidence of blunt force trauma. Now Smith and Sergeant John Winters have to deal with a case of what looks like murder. As they search for answers, they discover that the two young men were lifelong friends. They were part of a group of wealthy young people who had come to the area for a skiing holiday. All of them were staying at the same B & B, so the investigation begins to focus on the young people who stayed there. Little by little, the evidence shows what really happened to Ewan Williams.

Inspector John Carlyle and his assistant Joe Szyskowski face a blunt force trauma murder in James Craig’s Never Apologise, Never Explain. They are called to the scene when Henry Mills discovers the body of his wife Agatha in their home in Russell Square. She’s been bludgeoned and Mills himself is the most likely suspect. He claims that he was asleep when the murder occurred, and that his wife was killed by political enemies. Carlyle and Szyskowski don’t believe Mills’ story at first and he’s arrested. But soon afterwards, Carlyle gets an important clue that Mills was telling the truth. So he and Szyskowski investigate the case more thoroughly. They find that Agatha Mills’ death had everything to do with political history, UK relations with Chile and diplomacy.

And then there’s Elizabeth Spann Craig’s Progressive Dinner Deadly. Retired teacher Myrtle Clover has joined a local book club and is hoping to change the book club’s ‘reading diet’ from just best-sellers to some richer, more enduring books. To her great annoyance, her suggestion soon morphs into an idea to change the club to a progressive dinner club. Members of the club decide to do a group dinner once a month, with the members moving among each other’s houses as the meal progresses. One member hosts appetizers, another hosts main dishes and so on. Myrtle isn’t at all happy about this, being not known for her gourmet cooking. But she grumpily agrees and the first progressive dinner is planned. To everyone’s shock, when the club members arrive at the home of Jill Caulfield, they discover that she has been killed by a blow to the head with a heavy pan. Her husband Cullen is the first suspect, but as Myrtle soon discovers, he’s far from the only one. The victim was a house-cleaner who had a habit of finding out people’s secrets, and that’s not the only motive Myrtle uncovers. Then there’s another death. Now Myrtle tries to find out how the two murders are related.

I know I’ve only mentioned a few examples of the way blunt force trauma is used in crime fiction. There are many, many more and it’s easy to see why. Picking up the nearest heavy object doesn’t require a lot of special skill or background, it does the job, and lots of different items can be used for the purpose. So, yeah, crime fiction is definitely a ‘hard hat area.’

Those of Us With Ravaged Faces, Lacking in the Social Graces*

Crime fiction confronts us with our own prejudices. And one of those prejudices has to do with what we consider attractive. Of course people’s definitions of what’s attractive vary, and each culture has its own view of what ‘counts’ as ‘beautiful.’ But just about everyone is drawn to the physically appealing rather than to people who are considered unattractive. That’s why it can be very refreshing when a major character (in crime fiction, that’s usually the sleuth) is not what people think of as physically attractive. That takes writing skill.

Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs. Bradley, for instance, is hardly what one would call beautiful. In The Mystery of Butcher’s Shop, she is described as

 

‘A small, shriveled, bird-like woman who might have been thirty-five and who might have been ninety, clad in a blue and sulphur jumper like the plumage of a macaw…’

 

Her clothes are notoriously unattractive and she’s sometimes described as having saurian features or a reptilian smile. She is not what most people would find physically appealing, but she is a brilliant detective. She’s a psychoanalyst who has a thorough understanding of motivation and personality. And in this novel, that helps her to find out who murdered local squire Rupert Sedleigh and how his body ended up in a local butcher shop. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Bradley was portrayed by the emphatically not saurian Diana Rigg in a television series and it’s very interesting to see that Mrs. Bradley’s (lack of) taste in clothes and her unattractive appearance were given an overhaul for that series.

Rex Stout’s Archie Goodwin doesn’t fare too badly as far as appearance goes but his boss Nero Wolfe could hardly trade on his looks. Wolfe fans will know that he weighs a seventh of a ton. That’s heavy by just about anyone’s standards. Archie later says that Wolfe weighs

 

‘…between 310 and 390…’   

 

And although Wolfe isn’t depicted as hideous-looking, he doesn’t win clients over with his handsomeness. Still, when Wolfe is on the case, it’s easy to forget (even when Goodwin mentions it) that he’s much heavier than most people consider attractive. In Fer de Lance, for instance, he and Goodwin solve the unusual murder of Peter Barstow, president of Holland University. They first learn of this case when Maria Maffei visits Wolfe and asks for him to help find her brother Carlo, who has disappeared. When Carlo Maffei is found dead, it comes out that he had designed the special golf club that was used to kill Barstow. So now Goodwin and Wolfe have to find out who paid Maffei to create this design and killed him before he could reveal what he knew.  In this novel and in other novels in this series, clients don’t come to Wolfe because of his appearance; they come to him because he’s very good it what he does. Wolfe may not be physically attractive but we really do forget that when he’s on the case.

Most people probably wouldn’t call Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope ‘a looker.’ She’s somewhat overweight, has eczema, and although she keeps clean, she doesn’t exactly take a lot of pains with her appearance. Stanhope is aware of the fact that she’s not conventionally beautiful, and sometimes that makes her self-conscious, as in Silent Voices. That novel begins with Stanhope going for a swim at the local gym/spa. She specifically chooses early morning for her doctor-prescribed workout because she’d rather not be there at the same time as the club’s usual habitués, young women who are tanned, thin and have beautiful faces. During this trip Stanhope makes a horrifying discovery. When she goes to the steam room after her swim, she finds the body of social worker Jenny Lister. Once she’s on this case, it’s easy to forget that Stanhope is not what you’d think of as ‘pretty’ at all. Instead, she’s intuitive, thoughtful, determined and a very good detective.

Reginald Hill’s Superintendent Andy Dalziel isn’t exactly magazine-cover material either, physically speaking. In A Pinch of Snuff, for instance, Hill says that Dalziel’s face is

 

‘…as heavy and ugly as a slag heap.’

 

What’s more, Dalziel’s overweight and makes no effort to behave in what most people would call a socially acceptable way. But he is a sound human being with real intuition. What’s more, he’s loyal, ethical and a very good detective. Although he’s often called, ‘the Fat Man,’ his appearance really doesn’t matter in terms of his ability to solve cases. In this novel for instance, he and Inspector Pascoe investigate the Calliope Kinema Club, which has a reputation for showing extreme and sometime violent pornography. It’s all legal though, or it least it seems so until Pascoe’s dentist suspects that one of the actresses has been actually hurt or worse. When Pascoe looks into it though, the actress seems to be fine. Still, Pascoe isn’t quite satisfied. Then the club’s owner Gilbert Haggard is murdered, and the club is wrecked. Now Dalziel and Pascoe have to find out what was really going on there that would lead to murder.

And then there’s Alan Orloff’s Channing Hayes. He’s a standup comic who survived a terrible car accident that claimed the life of his fiancée Lauren Dempsey. In Killer Routine, he’s just getting back into the ‘standup life’ as co-owner of The Last Laff, a Northern Virginia comedy club. Then, Lauren’s sister Heather disappears one night just before she’s supposed to go onstage at the club. Hayes is worried about Heather so he starts asking questions and before he knows it, he’s up against Heather’s difficult parents, dangerous ex-boyfriend and several other people in her life who don’t seem to want her to be found. Hayes has a scarred face and a withered left hand because of the accident, so most people who meet him wouldn’t exactly call him gorgeous. Hayes knows this and it sometimes makes him self-conscious. But it doesn’t take away from his ability to find out what happened to Heather Dempsey. And as the story goes on, it’s easy to forget that Hayes isn’t conventionally good-looking.

All too often, media images tell us what we’re supposed to find attractive and what physical qualities we’re supposed to admire. And all too often, that means the marginalisation of those who don’t fit those images. I’m glad that crime fiction doesn’t fall into that trap and I respect authors who have the skill to create strong and sympathetic characters who aren’t conventionally attractive.

 

 

 

*NOTE:  The title of this post is a line from Janis Ian’s At Seventeen.

See What You’ve Made and See Who You Are*

People often get into patterns of doing things. Sometimes a new pattern creeps up on us so subtly that we’re not even aware we’ve developed one. Sometimes we’re more deliberate about it. Patterns can weave themselves into any aspect of our lives, and for the book lover, that includes reading. If you’ve ever found yourself suddenly realising that the last several books you’ve read have been about the same topic, or take place in the same region, or treat the same theme, you know what I mean. Of course, everyone’s different about reading patterns, but it’s interesting to see how they affect our choices, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Some reading patterns start almost accidentally if I can put it that way. For instance, suppose a friend lends you a novel such as Vicki Delany’s In the Shadow of the Glacier, which introduces Trafalgar, British Columbia Constable Molly Smith. Now, suppose you enjoy that novel, so you pay a little more attention when you notice a review of Gail Bowen’s The Endless Knot, which also takes place in Canada. It’s in a very different province, but you liked the Delany, so…why not? Then you notice yourself reading other books with Canadian settings (e.g. Giles Blunt, Louise Penny or Anthony Bidulka). Before you really now what’s happened, you’ve developed a pattern of reading more Canadian crime fiction than you thought you had.

The same kind of thing happens sometimes when people read crime fiction that takes place in a given era. For example, you might read one of Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple novels that take place in the 1920’s. The era is absolutely fascinating, so perhaps that tempts you to read one of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher novels or perhaps Jeffrey Stone’s Play Him Again. Those novels also take place in the 1920’s. Before you’re even aware of it, you’ve started on a pattern of reading novels that take place in a particular time period.

We all have different sub-genres of crime fiction that particularly appeal to us and sometimes, we find that we’ve developed a pattern of mostly reading within one sub-genre. If you’ve ever tried one of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels and loved it or one of Katherine Howell’s Ella Marconi novels and loved it, you may slowly find yourself reading more and more police procedurals. And because you haven’t thought about it or planned it, you’re not even really aware you’ve been reading a lot from that sub-genre.

After a while, most of us do notice that we’ve been reading a lot about one issue, or about one place/time, or in one sub-genre. Some people don’t mind that at all and there’s nothing wrong with that. Other people though decide to change their patterns or at least add in new ones.

That’s one reason why some patterns in reading are quite deliberate. Sometimes people deliberately develop patterns by choosing a reading challenge. There are dozens out there too, and a lot of them are not difficult to meet. I’ll just mention two. One is the Vintage Mystery Challenge, hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block . Readers who notice that they haven’t read a lot of classic, Golden Age or other vintage crime fiction may want to check out that challenge; there are lots of interesting categories and lots of possibilities for books. Another challenge is the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge. You may decide for instance that you’d like to be more familiar with all sorts of fiction being written by the terrific ladies from Down Under. This challenge gives you the chance to try some of their work. The great thing about challenges is that they give the reader a focus for breaking out of patterns or trying new ones.

Some readers deliberately try a new pattern through reading blogs that focus on particular places, times, etc.  For example, a look at Glenn Harper’s International Noir Fiction may convince you to add some noir to your reading diet. You may read Barbara Fister’s Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog and find some titles there that pique your interest. I know that terrific blogs like that have gotten me to take a look at my reading patterns and think about adjusting them.

There are plenty of readers too who keep notes on what they read and take a look at them periodically. Charts and graphs on what they read help them reflect and decide what they’re going to do about their patterns. You know who you are and I really respect that self-reflection.

Writers of course have another way of focusing deliberately on their reading patterns. The best writers are also voracious readers and are well aware of what other people in their sub-genre are doing. They keep up with the major authors and series in their sub-genre to help them improve what they do. I know that reading other authors’ work helps me.

These are just a few things I’ve discovered about reading patterns. What are your views? Do you notice yourself developing patterns without being aware of it? Do you plan your patterns? What gets you in the reading patterns you’ve developed? If you’re a writer, how do your reading and writing patterns affect each other?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Don McLean’s The Pattern is Broken.

I Think You Were Lost in the ’70′s*

As anyone who lived through them could tell you, the 1970′s were a time of real social, political and geopolitical change. And because good crime fiction reflects society, we see those changes reflected in the crime fiction of the era. There won’t be space in this one post for me to discuss all of those changes; I’ll just mention a few of them and you’ll see, I hope, what I mean.

Let’s start, though, with some major changes that were going on in crime fiction itself. You may disagree with me on this, but I see the 1970′s as a bridge between the end of the Golden Age/traditional kind of detective fiction and more modern crime fiction. Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and some other Golden-Age authors were still writing as the 1970′s began, and we see their influence. At the same time, though, other authors were taking that tradition and innovating with it.

For instance, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö began writing their series featuring Stockholm detective Martin Beck in the mid-1960′s and carried it through into the mid-1970′s. In that series, we see elements of traditional crime novels. But we also see innovations such as exploration of psychology and social critique. We could say a similar thing about Ruth Rendell’s series featuring Inspector Reg Wexford. That series began in the 1960′s and has continued since then. As the series moved into the 1970′s, we see the traditions of the Golden-Age detective story, but made more modern and addressing more complex themes. I would argue (but feel free to differ with me if you don’t see it this way) that these two series reflect a growing interest in 1970′s crime fiction in the development of deeper and more complex characters.

We also see that development in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, which also began (with Last Bus to Woodstock) in the 1970′s. That series has some elements that you could argue come from Golden Age traditions (e.g. the brilliant detective, the cast of suspects and so on). But at the same time there’s exploration of psychology, there’s the development of the flawed and complex sleuth, and other elements that one could argue are more typical of modern crime fiction.

The world outside was changing too and crime fiction of the day reflects that. One major change was the development of what I’ll call the youth culture. Many people think of ‘hippies’ as a ’60′s phenomenon,’ and certainly there was plenty of youth activism then. But student demonstrations and student political activism was vey much a part of, especially, the early 1970′s. We see that for instance in Reginald Hill’s An Advancement of Learning, in which Superintendent Andy Dalziel and (then) Sergeant Peter Pascoe investigate a murder on the campus of Holm Coultram College. There’s a strong student movement also in John Alexander Graham’s The Involvement of Arnold Wechsler. In that novel, a Classics professor is asked to investigate his brother’s connection to a radical student movement on the campus of quiet Hewes College. There are lots of other examples too of crime fiction that involves student activism and the ‘youth culture.’

Another major change of the 1970′s was the beginning of the move in international politics from the Cold War to what we think of as modern-day terrorism. Oh, the Cold War was still going on, and I’m sure you could list lots more Cold War-themed novels of the day than I could. And terrorism did not begin in the 1970′s. But especially after the tragic attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics, terrorism began to be a reality more than it ever had. We see that reflected, for instance in Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s The Terrorists. In that novel, Martin Beck and his team are assigned to protect a U.S. senator who’s visiting Stockholm because he is at risk from terrorists. In the meantime, they’re also investigating the murder of pornographic film-maker Walter Petrus (Valter Pettersson) and the case of Rebecka Lind, who’s on trial for a bank robbery she says she didn’t commit. It’s an interesting look at, among other things, the rise of the threat of terrorism and its effects on policing.

The politics of the 1970′s (I’m thinking in particular about the Watergate scandal that brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon’s administration) changed the way many people viewed political leadership. There’ve been political thrillers around for quite a while of course, but consipiracy thrillers (such as those of Robert Ludlum) were made even more popular by real-life events such as Watergate.

The 1970′s was also a time of a great deal of social upheaval too. As women began to insist on being treated as equals (the movement was called Women’s Lib(eration) in the U.S.) there was a real re-thinking of the roles men and women should play. Basically, the rules had changed and a lot of people were no longer sure exactly what they were any more. We see that reflected in a lot of crime fiction. For instance, there’s Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse, who is old-fashioned in some ways. As the 1970′s goes along, he has to increasingly interact with women who simply don’t see the world, or male/female relationships, the way he does. And then there’s the beginnings of the truly independent female crime fiction protagonist. Of course there’ve been female protagonists for quite a long time in the genre. But protagonists such as Marcia Muller’s PI sleuth Sharon McCone were a newer development. McCone does have relationships, but she doesn’t depend on a man to ‘do the rough stuff.’ Nor does she try to ‘act like a man.’ By the end of the decade, women were beginning to take on the world, if I can put it that way, on their own terms, and we start to see that in crime fiction.

I could mention a lot of the other major changes the 1970′s brought (e.g. the rewriting of the ‘rules’ for race relations, the beginning of the gay rights movement, and so on). And the crime fiction of the era reflects what an unsettled time it was. But what’s your view? What 1970′s phenomena do you see reflected in that decade’s crime fiction? C’mon, comb those sideburns or that ‘Farrah Flip,’ dig out that forest-green suit or peasant blouse and let me know what you think.

ps. You will notice that this post contains no mention of disco or disco fashion, other than this sentence. There is a reason for that.
 
 
 

*Note: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s All You Want to Do is Dance.

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction: Reginald Hill’s Andy Dalziel

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme is now at the fourth stop in our dangerous journey through the alphabet. Many thanks as ever to our tour guide Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for keeping us all safe thus far. My contribution for this week’s stop – the letter D – is Reginald Hill’s iconic Superintendent Andy “The Fat Man” Dalziel. Oh, come on, are you really surprised at my choice?

Dalziel is a superintendent in the West Yorkshire police, and he fits in well with his surroundings, being a Yorkshireman himself. He and his partner Peter Pascoe star in twenty-two novels, a novella and a collection of short stories – a series that has won these characters millions of fans worldwide. It’s easy to see why, too.

One of the most appealing things about Dalziel’s character is that he is straight-talking and down to earth. One always knows where one stands with him. For example, in Good Morning Midnight, Pascoe hears about the apparent suicide of business executive Pat Mciver. He goes to the Mciver home where he finds that a fracas has broken out. An unidentified man is trying to get into the home and is being blocked by P.C. Bonnick, who’s keeping the scene secure. Pascoe has just arrived, so he hasn’t gotten any information from Bonnick, nor has he had the chance to stop the fight. That’s when Dalziel arrives. He takes one look at the scene and says to Pascoe,

 

“Evening, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to see you’ve got everything here under control.”

 

A few minutes later, Dalziel talks to Jason Dunn, the man who was trying to get into the house, to get his version of what happened. Dunn, who’s out of breath and upset, stammers out part of his story. Dalziel then says,

 

“What’s your problem, lad? ….Apart from not being able to finish sentences.”

 

It turns out that Dunn is a sometimes rugby player and a PE teacher. Here’s Dalziel’s reaction:

 

“PE, eh? That explains about the sentences.”

 

There is never a question about Dalziel’s opinion about things and although that makes him abrasive and sarcastic, it’s also refreshing in that he doesn’t waste words or “dance around” things.

That gruffness though doesn’t mean that Dalziel has no compassion. He feels for those who’ve had to deal with tragedy. For instance, in Recalled to Life, Dalziel hears that Cissy Kohler has just been released from prison after serving a long prison sentence for the 1963 killing of Pamela Westrop. At the time of the murder, Dalziel’s mentor Wally Tallantire investigated the murder and gathered the evidence that convicted Kohler but new evidence suggests that Kohler was innocent. What’s more, there are hints that Tallantire deliberately knew that and hid what he knew. Dalziel doesn’t believe it and decides to find out the truth for himself. So he begins to look again into the Westrup murder. At one point, he goes to visit Tallantire’s widow Maude, for whom he has compassion, especially because of the ugly rumours that are now circulating about her husband. He’s warm and caring with her and when Maude gets a visit from two other cops who’ve been assigned to re-investigate the case, Dalziel wastes no time in protecting Maude and summarily getting rid of the other cops, as he feels they’re harassing her.

Dalziel is a working-class cop who likes his pint. And he deliberately cultivates that image when he feels it suits his purpose. For instance, in Recalled to Life, he makes a trip to New York where he meets with freelance writer Linda Steele, who thinks that Dalziel and his mission to find out what really happened in the Westrop case will make an interesting story. Steele offers to buy Dalziel breakfast and he agrees, adding,

 

“‘I don’t suppose they do black pudding.’
‘Black….what?’
‘Never mind. I like me bacon crisp enough to shave with, and me eggs like a parrot’s eye.’”

 

Beneath that “rube” exterior though, Dalziel is a brilliant detective and that, too, is an appealing part of his character. In An Advancement of Learning, for instance, he uses his ability to put the pieces together to solve the murder of Alison Girling, former president of Holm Coultram College. It was always assumed that Girling died in a freak avalanche, but when her body is discovered buried on campus, it becomes clear that she was murdered. Dalziel and Pascoe are sent to the campus to investigate and find themselves in a proverbial hornet’s nest of student activism, university politics and uncooperative faculty members who have little but contempt for Dalziel. But Dalziel is far more intuitive and intelligent than the people of Holm Coultram College think he is, and he and Pascoe discover what really happened to Girling and why.

What’s interesting is that in An Advancement of Learning and other novels too, Dalziel doesn’t always tell Pascoe everything either. It’s not that he doesn’t think Pascoe is competent; as the series evolves he discovers that Pascoe has his own skills and is a good detective. But Dalziel is strong-willed and strong-minded and has his ways of doing things. As the series moves on, we see in fact how Dalziel and Pascoe’s relationship develops. They start out disliking each other or at least not entirely respecting each other, but as the novels move on they get to know each other and come to depend on each other. It’s one of the more productive and interesting relationships between fictional cops.

To say that Andy Dalziel comes on strong is an understatement. But he’s brilliant, intuitive and dedicated. And he’s one of the most enduring fictional cops in the genre. And all this from a character who wasn’t even supposed to be the “star of the show!”

Want to know more about Dalziel? Sure ya do! Want to interact with other fans of Hill’s work? ‘Course ya do! Come and visit Celebrating Reginald Hill, a month-long blog dedicated to the life and work of Dalziel’s creator. I am honoured to be co-hosting the blog with Rhian Davies of It’s a Crime! (or a Mystery…) and we’re having a wonderful time. Check out some wonderful guest posts by a wide variety of contributors, read about Hill’s biography, and enter some competitions coming up as the month goes by. C’mon and join us – the party’s just gotten started!