- Hardcover
- Publisher: Delacorte Press (2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385336004
- ISBN-13: 978-0385336000
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.8 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 703 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #751,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Known for complex plotting, deep characterization and sly humor, Hill here adds to his string of brilliant psychological thrillers featuring two of Britain's most well-rounded detectives. Supt. Andy Dalziel (aka the Fat Man) is the ultimate ham on wry. He takes no pains to hide his enormous appetites, but it pleases him to hide his sharp mind behind crude behavior and ribald speech. He pretends to misunderstand the erudite conversation of the various intellectuals who inhabit the story and delights in puncturing their pompous pronouncements. When one expert adviser presents what he calls an "interesting" theory, Dalziel responds, "If you're waiting for a bus and a giraffe walks down the street, that's interesting. But it doesn't get you anywhere." Refined, polite, rock-solid Inspector Peter Pascoe is the perfect foil to his outlandish boss. Between them they've found truth in many a maze, but here both play background roles to rookie constable Bowler, inevitably nicknamed Hat. Hill's fans know his fondness for all sorts of wordplay, but he takes it to new level, for a word game is the crux of the mystery. The killer enters a short story competition with a piece, written in the form of a one-sided dialogue, that describes a murder and dares the police to untangle the clues planted therein. When they fail, another story submission arrives, describing a second murder. Five more people die before Pascoe's flash of insight illuminates the proper path. One final twist at the very end will take readers' breath away. (Jan. 2)Edgar, Diamond Dagger and Gold Dagger.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
People are dying in Mid-Yorkshire, UK, in what appear to be accidents: one man drowns in a shallow stream, while a young motorcyclist crashes into a tree. While wading through piles of stories that have been submitted for a fiction contest, the county library's reference librarian, Dick Dee, and his assistant, Rye Pomona, come across two stories titled "Dialogues" that give details of those deaths. When they realize that the stories were submitted before accounts of the deaths appeared in the local paper, Dick and Rye consult the area's newest law enforcement agent, handsome young detective Ethelbert "Hat" Bowler, who has been frequenting the library in the hopes of getting to know the beautiful Rye. He and his bosses, the irreverent, cantankerous Andy "Fat Man" Dalziel and the elegant Peter Pascoe, must analyze the cryptic "Dialogues" to find the killer they dub "The Wordman." This latest in Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series is filled with clever wordplay; complex, articulate suspects; and an intricate, suspenseful plot. Recommended for public libraries. Jane la Plante, Minot State Univ. Lib., ND
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost Great Book,
By Cordova Bay Entertainment Group, Inc. (Victoria, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Dialogues of the Dead (Hardcover)
Mysteries are mysteries except when written by Hill. His novels are wonderfully written works of fiction that use the murder mystery genre merely as the tread. It is the "getting there" that he masters so well.It was great to see the characters from his previous book, 'Death's Jest-Book' show up again in this novel - part two of the story... but 'Death's Jest-Book' is the one to own.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent and gripping,
By "fengshuistephanie" (Maui, HI) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dialogues of the Dead (Hardcover)
This is one of the best mysteries I've read recently, as a mystery and also as masterful piece of fiction writing. Hill is a genious of characterization, and the plot is both clever and unsettling. I could carp about the ending, which will surprise (and may dismay) you, but I have to admit it has really stuck with me and was not an easy, conventional solution.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow,
This review is from: Dialogues of the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book for Christmas for my husband as we are both fans of British mysteries. How we missed this author in all our years of reading authors likes Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin and Colin Dexter I have no idea, because Hill is an absolute pleasure. His plots flow smoothly but it is the characters of Dalziel and Pascoe that he has developed over some 30 years of writing that are the real gems. I have to admit after reading this novel I went back to his first "A Clubbable Woman" and read them through by publication date and am really sad that I have now read them all and will have to wait for the next one.
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