REGINALD HILL – Recalled to Life. Dalziel & Pascoe #13. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1992. Dell, paperback, 1993. First pubished in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1992. TV-Movie: BBC/A&E, UK/US, 19 June 1999 (Season 4, Episode 2 of Dalziel and Pascoe). Warren Clarke as Det. Supt. Andy Dalziel and Colin Buchanan as Det. Insp. Peter Pascoe.

   In my opinion, Reginald Hill is one of the three or four best British crime writers practicing today. There are none, I think whose latest book I pick up with any more pleasurable anticipation, and none who disappoint me less often.

   One of the strengths of his Dalziel-Pascoe books is that although featuring the same characters they are never the same book; a distinction missing, for better or worse, from many series.

   The latest featuring the unlikely pair is even more of a departure than usual. It begins almost 30 years ago, just after the time of the Ward-Profumo scandals that rocked the government. A woman is murdered at an aristocrat’s house, during a weekend in which several notables were present, including a successful businessman, a distant relation of the Queen, a young American agent, and the father of a modem-day member of the British government.

   The owner of the house is arrested and convicted, mainly by virtue of the confession of his accomplice, the nanny of one of the guest’s children. He is hanged, while her own death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. As the story proper opens, she is paroled because of new evidence uncovered which casts doubts on the probity of the police official who made the case — Dalziel’s mentor and protector, who is now deceased. Dalziel himself had been present and played a major part.

   An investigation is opened which threatens to blacken his mentor’s name, and Dalziel begins his own to counter. The plot eventually involves secret agencies of both British and American governments, and results in Dalziel traveling to the United States. Neither are quite the same afterwards. Dalziel, when asked for his impression of the country, re-plies that “it’ll be right lovely when they finish it.”

   Hill is a superb storyteller. The viewpoint switches back and forth between Dalziel and Pascoe, and occasionally to others as well, briefly but clearly illuminating them in passage. The tale is an exploration of guilt, and of expiation, but not of innocence. There is little of that, except of course for Pascoe, who has somehow retained his, along with the sense of outrage he feels when it is violated.

   Hill has disturbing things to say about the people who govern us and their methods, and I would not call it a comfortable book at all. It is, however, one you should read.