Wed 22 Apr 2009
Review: REGINALD HILL – Ruling Passion.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Characters , Crime Fiction IV[6] Comments
REGINALD HILL – Ruling Passion. Dell, paperback reprint; Scene of the Crime #51; first printing, August 1982. Hardcover editions: Collins/Crime Club, UK, 1973; Harper & Row, US, 1977. Reprinted many times, both hardcover and soft.
Chronologically the third of the Superintendent Dalziel–Sergeant Pascoe novels, of at least 20 and still counting, and only the second that I’ve managed to sit down and read. The first one is lost to memory — to mine, at least. I could hazard a guess as to which one it was, but that’s all it would be, a guess.
But even so, I could tell that the uneasy rapport (of sorts) between Pascoe and Dalziel was still going through some growing pains in Ruling Passion, the overweight (fat) Dalziel thinking of himself as a mentor, and Pascoe, if indeed a student, often wishing that he had a different master.
If you’re a long-time reader of the series, feel free to chip in. How has their relationship grown and changed over the years?
The two cases in Ruling Passion are really both Pascoe’s. The one in which he’s more deeply involved is the more interesting of the pair, and he’s not even the investigating officer. He and Ellie Soper, a friend from college days with whom he’s been recently reunited, getting together with four other friends from that time of their life, shockingly find three of them dead — murdered. Missing, and presumably the killer (although not to Pascoe’s way of thinking) is the husband of one of the three.
The other case, the one to which he’s officially been assigned, is that of a series of house break-in’s that have recently taken place while the owners have been away. A fairly innocuous case, but there are signs that — as opposed to the usual burglar — this one will put up a fight if he’s cornered.
This was a long book in 1973, unusually so, with over 300 pages of small print in the paperback edition I read; while it may run closer to today’s norms, I still found it long. The big question (to mystery readers) is whether or not the two cases are connected. Hill’s books can be difficult to get a good read on, or so I’ve been told, so it’s not so clear cut that the two cases are really one — and I won’t tell you.
But as possibly an experiment in story-telling technique, what these means is that there are two distinct circles of major characters for the reader to keep track of, and for me in particular, it meant that the case I found less interesting — the one involving the break-in’s — got the short end of the stick, as far as paying the attention I should have to it. (Looking back, though, having finished the book, I think that case number two as well as the characters really WERE less interesting.)
Hill also has a way of starting scenes somewhat after they’ve begun, hiding what happened at the end of one scene, only to come back to it later and off the beat. While Pascoe does a lot of detective work (Dalziel, while a central figure, stays rather in the background, if that makes sense) I don’t think he (Pascoe) did any detecting: just thinking and putting a lot of jumbled facts together, in a common sense sort of way, sometimes to good advantage and sometimes not.
Nor does Pascoe have all the facts, as it turns out. This is a detective novel in which the characters and the relationships between them are as interesting to watch and follow as the unraveling of the case(s) itself/themselves — if not more so.
Ellie, in particular, not sure in the beginning that she really likes having a policeman as a boy friend, and detesting Dalziel in particular, finds herself warming to him, gradually and very much to her surprise.
As for Pascoe, he is pleased to learn along the way that he’s been promoted to Inspector. Does that mean that there’s life, he wonders, after Dalziel?
[POSTSCRIPT] I haven’t mention the long-running BBC TV show based on the series, but obviously, since it did run so long (60 episodes in all, between 1996-2007), it must have had quite a bit going for it. Comments and/or comparisons, anyone?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Dalziel (pronounced D-L)and Pascoe continue to have a testy relationship over the years with growing respect from both sides and something like friendship as they each recognise (whether they want to admit it) that the other contributes importantly to the team. In some ways the relationship is a bit like that between Nero Wolfe and Archie, though Dalziel is far from Wolfe’s epicurian genius.
Hill also wrote a number of good thrillers without Dalziel and Pascoe under his own name and as Patrick Ruell. Who Guards the Prince? written as Hill and Urn Burial and The Long Kill by Ruell are good examples. Of the Hill books about Dalziel and Pascoe I would suggest A Clubbable Woman, An Advancement of Learning, Child’s Play, and some of the shorts in Pascoe’s Ghost and There Are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union.
I’ve lost track of the two in recent years, but always intend to get back to them. The dramatizations are good, with the actor playing Dalziel particularly well cast.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 am
A couple months ago I read A Clubbable Woman and An Advancement Of Learning and immediately watched the British TV versions which are available in box sets overseas.
Frankly, I was astonished as to how well the TV versions not only followed the complex plots but completely captured the essense of the various characters.
British TV, unlike Hollywood and American TV, makes a serious effort to follow the novel when adapting the story for viewers. Since the books are almost always the better version, British TV adaptations are usually far more of a literary effort than American television. There are a few exceptions such as the HBO Philip Marlowe series starring Powers Boothe and the recent Nero Wolfe series, but far the most part American producers and directors seem to think they know far more than the author of the novel being adapted.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
David and Walker
Given your recommendations so far, I’ll have to see how easily I can obtain the DVDs of the BBC series.
Walker, not all British TV adaptations are top notch. I remember watching a version of ROGER ACKROYD on the Suchet-Poirot series that I thought rather inferior, and I’m told that the most recent MISS MARPLE series are abominable — as adaptations, that is. Perhaps they’re watchable in their own right.
They’re also constantly messing around with SHERLOCK HOLMES, too. Modernizing them, I think it’s called, for the younger generations.
But I do agree, when the British do it right, it’s done right.
— Steve
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I didn’t want to mention the recent horrifying adaptations starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. They have been universally condemned not only for McEwan’s interpretation of the character, but because the TV series routinely changes the Agatha Christie plots and endings.
I guess we can find examples to blow any theory out of the water. But I definitely stand by my original statement and your final sentence, “…when the British do it right, it’s done right.” Such TV shows as Inspector Morse, Touch of Frost, Wire in the Blood, Touch of Evil, Dalziel and Pascoe, Inspector Lyndley, Foyle’s War, Taggart, Prime Suspect, Public Eye, and others far outshine our American TV series.
Of course even the US has quality crime and mystery shows that prove the exception, such as The Wire, The Shield, Sopranos, Oz, Homicide Life on the Street. But these shows are almost always on cable channels which allow the writers, directors, and actors to deal with violence, sex, language, and not worry about the censorship that the commercial channels have to face(ABC, NBC, CBS).
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Actors in American series have to committ to anywhere from 16 to 22 episodes and with that much material series creators often can’t have as much input as in the British system or made for cable series that may do as few as 6 to 8 episodes per season freeing up actors and creators (for instance Foyle’s War created by Poirot writer and best selling juvenile author Anthony Horowitz).
Also American series may have as little as a single episode to secure their place on the schedule, where most Brit and cable series know going in they are committed to at least the full first season.
In regard to the Powers Boothe Philip Marlowe series, weren’t those made and largely written and directed in England for HBO? I seem to recall something about that being the case.
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:27 pm
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