PETER HILL – The Hunters. Scribner’s, US, hardcover, 1976. UK edition: Peter Davies, 1976.

PETER HILL The Hunters

   A rapist killer strikes in Suffolk, and Scotland Yard sends out its crack team of Chief Superintendent Robert Stauton and Detective Inspector Leo Wyndsor. Mark their names as they will return.

   In brief, Stauton is supposedly infallible, uncompromising, and suffers from hemorrhoids, while Wyndsor is a man for the ladies, who literally tear their clothes off for him. Yet as a team they make an efficient pair, gradually learning each other’s personalities and vices, each determined to succeed.

   The initial stages of the investigation are as routine as usual, but the story suddenly comes alive when Wyndsor takes on the local priest in an argument about the Church and the human condition — I say he wins. At the same time overtones of the occult begin to work their way in, and a local coven’s meeting the night of the murder makes mince of coherent alibi taking.

   It is a problem, but one overcome by a nifty piece of police work, in a tale filled with characters one grows to appreciate. A fine debut.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 1, No. 3, May 1977. Very slightly revised. (This review appeared earlier in the Hartford Courant.)


[UPDATE] 01-20-11.   I don’t remember this one at all. I probably wouldn’t have reprinted it if I hadn’t felt the need to remind myself that you can’t be right all the time. There were several more books in the series, but Staughton and Wyndsor obviously didn’t catch on and/or couldn’t maintain the momentum I thought I saw in their first outing. From the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, here’s a list of all of Hill’s crime fiction under this name:

PETER HILL. Pseudonym of Peter Eyers-Hill, 1939- .

    The Hunters (n.) Davies 1976 [Chief Insp. Robert Staunton]
    The Fanatics (n.) Davies 1977 [Commander Allan Dice]
    The Liars (n.) Davies 1977 [Chief Insp. Robert Staunton]
    The Enthusiast (n.) Davies 1978 [Chief Insp. Robert Staunton]
    The Washermen (n.) Davies 1979 [Commander Allan Dice]
    The Savages (n.) Heinemann 1980 [Chief Insp. Robert Staunton]

Note: The last two titles had no US publication.