Pictures of Perfection – Reginald Hill #20booksofsummer

Crime Fiction 5*s

What a delightful novel for me to have picked more or less at random from this wonderful author as part of my 20 Books of Summer challenge and one that couldn’t fail to remind me how well this talented author wrote exceptional tales in his many diverse books. This is the fourteenth book in the Dalziel and Pascoe series, and as with any series they are probably best enjoyed if you read them in order although many, this one included, can be read and appreciated perfectly well as a stand-alone novel.

Despite the book opening with a truly terrifying scene in Pictures of Perfection Reginald Hill has given us a slightly gentler read than some others in the series, although don’t be deceived, at its heart are some very black truths along with some almost prophetic happenings!

Two days before the opening in 1980s rural village of Enscombe in Yorkshire, the local bobby (yes as recently as this the local policemen still lived in the villages) goes missing. He didn’t return from his day’s leave and there is no sign of where or why he might have left. Sergeant Wield is called to the scene, he turns up in style and begins the investigation. Not long afterwards and Superintendent Dalziel gets wind that there is something amiss so he and DCI take a visit to lend a hand.

All the while those opening scenes were in my mind but I had little joy in linking this event to the half-truths and misdirection that was being played out in Enscombe by a whole host of delightful characters. We have a beautiful artist is the love object of many of the male inhabitants, the spinster who runs the hall while her father the geriatric squire is regretful that the laws of inheritance have dictated that this should actually go to Guy with his flashy cars and dress sense. Not to be out-done with have the highly religious café owner who serves her delicious cakes with an aside of bible texts, while the vicar is waiting for eviction from the vicarage when it is sold off to make money for the church. One thing the village is in agreement about is that their local school should remain open, with this in mind there is the ubiquitous fund-raising which comes with a plan B, the sale of the village green.

There is so much to delight in within the pages of Pictures of Perfection, from the links to Jane Austen both ostentatious in the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter and slightly more subtle references within the themes themselves, to the moment in history that the book evokes; this was probably the last moments where ‘village life’ could be portrayed in this manner without those who live in such places laughing at the cliché of ‘Olde Worlde Britain’ that it evokes, one where everyone knows each other better than they know themselves often bound by a common enemy or two.

You’ll be pleased and reassured to know with all the periphery views to enjoy within the pages of this novel, there is also a proper plot with a full-blown mystery or two to be solved so my favourite policemen, complete in triplicate; Wield, Pascoe and Dalziel get to business and each in their own way bring pieces of the puzzle back to the police house for examination. Meanwhile the preparations continue around them at the Hall for the ‘Day of Reckoning’, a village tradition where the rents due to the Squire are paid, and it is here that the opening passage is seen from a different perspective. While I never doubted that the trio would solve the mystery of the missing bobby, I did wonder if they would come to a conclusion for the meaning of the Hall’s motto fuctata non perfecta; fear not, all the loose ends, even those in Latin are sewn up, neatly or otherwise!

This was a perfect addition to my 20 Books of Summer challenge the only downside to reading this book on holiday was that I didn’t have ready access to a dictionary – reader, I confess, I needed one more than a few times!!

Under World – Reginald Hill

Crime Fiction
4*s

This is number ten in the wonderful Dalziel & Pascoe series, written in 1988 with a setting centred on a small mining community in Burrthorpe in Yorkshire. This is in the aftermath of the strikes of the 80’s and the miners now have sponsored day release for educational purposes. Ellie Pascoe is roped in to take some classes which provides her from a break writing her feminist novel which isn’t proceeding as planned. Her class includes an angry young man, Colin Farr whose father was the last person to see young Tracey Pedley alive before she was murdered. A local man who committed suicide was widely believed to be the culprit but that hasn’t completely stemmed the whispers and rumours.

Under World creates the atmosphere of a small closed community perfectly, a place where old secrets are kept and ruminated upon away from outside eyes so when a murder occurs in Burrthorpe mine means that the police are called in to investigate it takes Dalziel and Pascoe a while to get to the truth. It doesn’t help that Colin Farr is one of the chief suspects not least because Ellie obviously is attracted to the dark brooding young man who hates the locality but is unable to leave until he works out the truth of what his father did the day little Tracey went missing. Ellie is drawn to the young man’s mind, as well as his physical attributes, as she struggles to balance her feminist and leftist ideals against her role as wife and mother, most particularly her role as wife to a Police officer in a place where the wounds from the strike have not yet healed.

Most of us won’t have worked under ground yet Hill manages to recreate the atmosphere both from multiple points of view, from the seasoned miner to a sightseeing trip for the educators and an investigative perspective for the police. All add a different facet to build up a picture of what this way of life would have meant for those toiling unseen in the depths of the earth and given the lack of alternative employment in the locality, let alone one that would provide the same sense of mutual dependency on those who worked alongside you, why the downfall of this industry had the power to change these communities for ever.

I love Reginald Hill’s writing, he is one of the few writers whose strong political messages I enjoy rather than dismiss, probably because he weaves this carefully into the story-line without ever invoking a ‘preachy tone’. The black-humour that is present in the rest of the series also threads its way throughout this book, raising a wry smile from time to time, usually provoked by one of Dalziel’s proclamations. None of this gets in the way of a really good story though, the plot is as convoluted as expected, the tension kept taut as the investigation is sent hither and thither and the set of characters entirely believable. Although the absence of modern technology was noticeable, especially the use of phone boxes to summon help, apart from that, despite having been written so long ago this book didn’t feel dated, it easily stands up to the more modern police procedurals from one of the masters of this genre.

I’m delighted to have chosen this as part of my 20 Books of Summer 2015! Challenge, it reminded me quite how good this series is and I can see that I will be revisiting more in the not too distant future.