I’ve just started Hill’s latest published in this country, “Death’s Jest Book”. I can’t, however, remember exactly what Rye Pomona had to do with the Wordman murders. Damned If I can remember whether she committed allof them, one of them, or something in between. (I’m damned sure that the struggle that Hat Bowler found the two in was her killing him, or trying to).
Please, can someone, please, tell me that the reader is supposed to know about the Wordman killings at the start of “Death’s Jest Book”?
SPOILERS ahead! I don’t know how to do the spoiler thingy, so I am sorry if I ruin this for some of you.
The reader is led to believe at the end of Dialogues of the Dead that the police think Dick Dee committed the murders and that Dee was killed in an act of self-defense. This could not be further from the truth. IIRC, it was Bowler who killed Dee, believing that he was going to harm his beloved Rye.
Some of the best fiction I have ever read is the dialogue of all of the victims, their conversations on how they died and how they arrived at death in the exact positions, literally, they were in when they were killed. Very sublime stuff.
If you want to know more, I’d be happy to tell you. I will say this, though, I do NOT like the way Death’s Jest Book ends. Not at all.
On a side note, if any of you get a chance to see some of the made-for-tv movies based on the books, by all means do so. I usually prefer the book versions to any movie that is based on a book, but these British productions are jolly good. IMO, there is no one who would make a better Fat Andy than Warren Clarke. Some may not like associating an actor with a literary character, but the casting in these movies actually enhances the books (for me anyway).
You’re right, gleeb…Rye Pamona was the serial killer of the first book. She was trying to kill Dick Dee and Hat thought Dee was trying to kill her. Dee died in the struggle (presumably by Hat’s hand). That’s essentially all you need to know to read the second. I would give you more details, but I’m out of town right now and don’t have easy access to my copies.
I agree with chicksdigcars that the BBC productions of the Reginald Hill books are great. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I developed a crush on Clive Owens while watching Mystery! and now picture him as every detective of every book I read. Yum.
I did want to say, though, yay for all you fans of British Police Procedurals! I read them almost exclusively. I should probably start a thread dealing with the topic, because I’m running out of authors. I do still have the new Peter Robinson, Val McDermid, and Jill McGown books to read (they’re all out in hardback right now). I’m reading The Murder Room (P.D. James) right now. In fact, off I go to snuggle under the covers with my booklight…
Have you read any of the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin? Other suggestions are the Frost novels by R.D.Wingfield and* Dangerous Davies * stories by Leslie Thomas. Both of the latter have been made into TV series. Only four books of each have actually been written so the TV shows are "based on the characters from the books " as are many of the Dalziel programmes.
Another suggestion :- widen your horizons , skip across the English Channel and try the Maigret stories from George Simenon. There are about 85 altogether , written between 1930 and 1972, and are my favourite amongst police detective novels.
