Villages, Reginald Hill, and Pictures of Perfection

Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill published 1994The Lord of the Manor We’ve been looking at jumble sales in books, drifting also into church fetes and village bazaars (many entries - this is the most recent, with links back). Unconnected, I’d been re-reading the works of Reginald Hill – the Dalziel and Pascoe series – and happen to have come to this one, which is wholly concerned with something called the Day of Reckoning. There’s a small village, Enscombe, where everything revolves round the Big House, and where there is a massive annual celebration. The book opens (more or less) late on that day, with quite a major event, then goes back a few days to show what led up to it. It sounds a bit like Margery Allingham’s Beckoning Lady, but Hill himself seems to be channeling Jane Austen – a quote for every chapter, and various parallels. (It might even resemble the Gaudy in Gaudy Night or The Counting of the Starkadders in Cold Comfort Farm) Going back 20 years: I had read some of…