Synopses & Reviews
From the winner of Britain's most prestigious Diamond Dagger Award comes a beautifully written, multilayered psychological thriller.
Three times Yorkshire policeman Peter Pascoe has wrongly accused ex-con, aspiring academic, and inveterate joker Franny Roote of a crime, only to have Roote walk free. Now Roote is sending strange and threatening letters that connect back to a nineteenth-century poet-physician, and Pascoe fears there is worse to come. This time he's determined to prove Roote guilty as sin.
Meanwhile, Pascoe's colleague Edgar Wield rides to the rescue of a boy in danger, and in return, the boy tips him off about the heist of a priceless treasure. Soon Wield is torn between protecting the lad and doing his duty.
At least Detective Constable Bowler is looking forward to a blissful New Year with the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, her dreams are filled with a horror too terrible to tell...
Over all this activity broods Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel. As trouble builds, Dalziel discovers that omniscience can be more trouble than it's worth.
In this brilliant novel of suspense, complete with intricate plotting, sly humor, and deft wordplay, acclaimed author Reginald Hill sets up a battle of wills between determined cops and an ingenious villain. Hill has been praised by the New York Times Book Review as "ever the master of form and sorcerer of style," and with Death's Jest-Book, he delivers a tour de force not to be missed.
Review
"Diamond Dagger winner Hill ties up some loose ends from his previous Dalziel/Pascoe book, Dialogues of the Dead (2002), in this gritty, witty psychological suspense novel." Publishers Weekly
Review
"If readers can hold on to this plot line through the ornate subplots...they will be rewarded with Hill's deft planting of suspense bombs. Mostly for the initiated Pascoe fan." Connie Fletcher, Booklist
Review
"Roote's epistolary style is as brilliant as it is bizarre, and his creepy letters on such eclectic matters as the revenge theme in Jacobean tragedy and the smartest way to avoid being raped in prison or in the groves of academe are a joy to read." Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"It's clever, involving and admirably resolved. No one does it better than Hill." The Guardian
Review
"Twenty novels into the series, nothing about Death's Jest-Book suggests that Hill is writing out of habit. It's an insult, particularly to a mystery writer, to say that his work is literate a novel, by definition, should be literate. But it may be necessary to use that descriptive to get at the high quality of Hill's writing....The fineness of Hill's writing is evident not just in the language itself but in the ease of his construction, the ease with which he cuts among his large cast of Yorkshire cops....The real tribute to mystery writers comes when you can say that you pick up their books to keep company with the cast of characters. Dalziel and Pascoe are nowhere close to wearing out their welcome." Charles Taylor, Salon.com
Review
"Once again, Hill takes the classic British mystery to new levels of psychological suspense, character development, and literary mastery....[A] superlative mystery." Library Journal
Review
"Reginald Hills novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories intertwining." Ian Rankin
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"Reginald Hill is probably the best living crime writer in the English-speaking world." The Independent (U.K.)
Review
"Few writers in the genre today have Hills gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace." Donna Leon
Synopsis
In a brilliant novel of psychological suspense, acclaimed author Reginald Hill sets up a battle of wills between determined cops and an ingenious villain.
Synopsis
From the winner of Britain's prestigious Diamond Dagger Award comes a beautifully written, multilayered psychological thriller featuring Yorkshire policeman Peter Pascoe.
About the Author
Reginald Hill is a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his outstanding crime novels featuring Dalziel and Pascoe, the best detective duo on the scene bar none Daily Telegraph. His writing career began with the publication of A Clubbable Woman (1970), which introduced Chief Superintendent Andy Dalziel and DS Peter Pascoe. With their subsequent appearances Reginald Hill has won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers Assocation Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to the genre.