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…