Synopses & Reviews
Reginald Hill, "who has raised the classical mystery to new heights" (The New York Times), brings back his improbable pair of inspectors, the crude Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel and the sensitive Peter Pascoe, in a wrenching case that is both a whodunit and a textured, psychologically intricate novel.
Fifteen years before the novel starts the village of Dendale had been flooded and its inhabitants removed to make way for a new reservoir. Three little girls had disappeared along with the prime suspect. This had been Dalziel's worst case. Now it looks as if he's about to relive it: a little girl goes missing in the next valley to Dendale; some graffiti with a deadly message appears, and the old village emerges as the reservoir shrinks. To deal with the current disappearance, the loutish Andy Dalziel and the sensitive Peter Pascoe must delve into the past and into their own reserves of experience in search of answers that threaten to bring more pain than they resolve.
Another Dalziel/Pascoe novel that takes Reginald Hill beyond the genre. "On Beulah Height" is a splendidly crafted novel with a story that has two threads -- one from the not so distant past, one in the present, that will eventually come together.