Dalziel & Pascoe, an Overview: the Early Years

 

 

I decided a while back to reread all Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe books – partly because I’m trying to reduce the number of books in the house, so have to make decisions. Keep or give to Oxfam? The end result is always (boringly) – keep some, ditch others. Giving away isn’t always a mark of displeasure in a book, as there is also the question of whether I will ever want to read them again.

I have already posted on the book that is one of my great favourites by Reginald Hill, the 1994 Pictures of Perfection. There is backstory there on how I came to read it after earlier deciding to ditch the series:

Villages, Reginald Hill, and Pictures of Perfection

In the post I say this:

I had read some of the early Hill books, but had drifted away. Re-reading now I can see why – I found them trite, not inventive, and full of weird misogyny and hearty nonsense. I didn’t (as you might expect from such a feminist bolshy leftie as myself) particularly object to the lordly Dalziel – he is beyond criticism, I enjoyed him – but I couldn’t get on with other aspects.

 

-and after my comprehensive re-read, I do think he changed more than any other writer I can think of over his very long career. I would love to know what changed him…

He was  a prolific writer, and there other books not in this series, a whole other series with Joe Sixsmith, some standalones, and short stories. I never got on with any of them

-       Sample note from A Fairly Dangerous Thing: ‘comedy crime’ absolutely dire with cringe-making references to women, not remotely saved by being 1972’

so here I will only deal with Dalziel and Pascoe

What everyone says, by the way, is that Reginald Hill was a lovely man.

So – a quick run through the earlier books, from 1970 to 1990:

1)  A Clubbable Woman  1970. Fairly awful, dreary settings and bizarrely awful portrayals of women. Pb cover (below) extraordinary, even for its date. Modern version shows an old-school phone receiver hanging down. Not really anything to do with the plot… It is short (190pp), my goodness he got longer later.

 

2)  An Advancement of Learning 1971 Better. Features Ellie Soper (although she  already knew Pascoe from before) and Frannie Roote! That was a surprise. Academic setting always helps. There are still a lot of sexist remarks, eg Daziel thinks that very young women were often much guiltier than the men accused of debauching them… Interesting plot but incredibly complex goings-on revealed in the last few pages that couldn’t possibly have been guessed.

 

3)  Ruling Passion  1973  Proper interesting crime, good setup.  Features a gay couple. Not a procedural in the usual way, and all the better for it. A lot of loose ends, unlikely coincidences and very similar characters. But good. Set in Yorkshire and Cotswolds.

 

4)  An April Shroud 1975 Starts with Pascoe and Ellie’s wedding, then they disappear on honeymoon and only reappear near the end. Dalziel goes off in his car and ends up gatecrashing a dysfunctional family who are burying one member and involved in all kinds of strange goings-on. At first he is stranded (weather/car troubles) but then he stays on. Not a police procedural, the kind of thing that might be described as a jeu d’esprit. It felt very much like a Michael Innes book (or a Bunuel film where no-one can leave). The climax comes at a mediaeval banquet, with most of the characters dressed up to match, which was quite the thing at the time. 

 

5)  A Pinch of Snuff 1978 The books are getting longer – we are up to 372pp now, double the first one. It has dismaying sexual politics and strange scenes and setpieces approaching farce. My notes say: stripper on a trampoline, dentists’ surgery, shed.

Hill at this best: ‘Dalziel scratched the folds of his chin. It was like the finger of God running along the Grand Canyon.’

 

6)  A Killing Kindness 1980 Interesting. Some good aspects, one great clue, some very old-fashioned attitudes.

 

7)  Dead Heads 1983 Clear from the beginning that a psychopath is doing all kinds, but is able to live a normal life. Very well plotted and carefully written, though ‘calling out racism’ is just repeating it.

8)   Exit Lines   1984  Not bad, three different dead men and intertwining stories. Chapter headings are people’s final words, keyed to content. Still a problem with women, but the complexities of the plot are very enticing.

9)  Child’s Play 1987   450pp Interesting story, woman who has left her money to dead/missing son. Complicated. Sgt Wield being gay is a big issue.

 

10)                  Under World 1988   Set in mining community and with scene underground. Very accomplished but dull

 

11)                  Bones and Silence 1990 Not compelling, too long, hard to get interested. It ends in a marvellous performance of a Mystery Play, and some good surprises

 

could definitely be Dalziel top right...

 

The books have changed a fair bit over these years and the characters are rounded out – we have certainly got to know the regulars very well, and the plots are more detailed, and the treatment of women has definitely improved. And in my opinion, this is the point at which there is a big leap.

About the misogyny in these books: there is an argument that they are ‘views of their time’ and that is indeed true. But it is interesting to  read (as I did last year:  Golden Age reference books, and Bodies from the Library) Colin Watson’s Snobbery with Violence, written in 1972  - which is a refreshing challenge to that. Briefly, he was a popular and award-winning English male crime author, and he doesn’t have a moment for the racism, violence and misogyny of the time. They didn’t need to be like that.

The next book I thought made a massive change, and is one of my absolute favourites….

Part 2 post coming soon, and the verdicts will start getting much more friendly.