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A review by saareman
Bones And Silence by Reginald Hill
5.0
Accidents, Suicides or Murders?
Review of the Grafton Books paperback edition (1991) of the Collins Crime Club hardcover original (1990)
Yorkshire CID Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced "dee-ELL") and assistants Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe and Detective Sergeant Wield are caught up in an elaborate series of apparent accidents, suicides and disappearances which are either an extended series of coincidences or the result of masterful nefarious planning.
Dalziel himself is an indirect witness to one of the "suicides," but the two other surviving witnesses provide statements which contradict not only him but each other. Someone is lying or could the corpulent Superintendent actually be wrong? Even the normally loyal Pascoe and Wield begin to have their doubts. But then the bodies continue to pile up and an evasive character seems to be the manipulator behind the scenes. How will they find any evidence to prove it?
Dalziel as usual is in fine form ranting and raging against the inefficiency of others:
The side-plots involve the staging of a cycle of Mystery Plays as organized and directed by the controversial local theatre personality Eileen Chung who plans to rope Dalziel himself into the production in the role of God with the aid of her friend Ellie Pascoe and her somewhat unwilling husband. And there is a series of anonymous notes appearing on the Superintendent's desk which promise yet another suicide, unless the secret identity of Dalziel's 'Dark Lady' can be unveiled in time. The climactic scene is a completely unexpected shocker.
This was again one of the best of the Dalziel & Pascoe series that I've read in my current 2022 re-read mini-binge (I don't own all of them) due to the extensive characterizations that author Hill develops throughout and the constant entertainment of Dalziel's outrageous statements and sometime off the wall deductions.
Cover image of the original Collins Crime Club hardcover edition (1990). Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I re-read Bones and Silence due to a recent discovery of my old mystery paperbacks from the 1980s in a storage locker cleanout. I was also curious about the precedents for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb in the Slough House espionage series in the personality of Reginald Hill's Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel, which Herron has acknowledged.
Book haul of the early Dalziel and Pascoe paperbacks, mostly from Grafton Books in the 1980s. Image sourced from Twitter.
Trivia and Link
Bones and Silence was adapted for television in 1998 as Episode 3 of Series 3 of the long running TV series of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007). The entire episode is posted on YouTube here, but it is formatted in a way that makes it hard to watch.
Review of the Grafton Books paperback edition (1991) of the Collins Crime Club hardcover original (1990)
We are only lightly covered with buttoned cloth; and beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence. - excerpt from Virginia Woolf's The Waves used as part of the epigraph for Bones and Silence.
Yorkshire CID Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced "dee-ELL") and assistants Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe and Detective Sergeant Wield are caught up in an elaborate series of apparent accidents, suicides and disappearances which are either an extended series of coincidences or the result of masterful nefarious planning.
Dalziel himself is an indirect witness to one of the "suicides," but the two other surviving witnesses provide statements which contradict not only him but each other. Someone is lying or could the corpulent Superintendent actually be wrong? Even the normally loyal Pascoe and Wield begin to have their doubts. But then the bodies continue to pile up and an evasive character seems to be the manipulator behind the scenes. How will they find any evidence to prove it?
Dalziel as usual is in fine form ranting and raging against the inefficiency of others:
'Because it's worth it to me,' grunted Dalziel. 'One, I'll break my own promises, not wait till someone give me permission. And two, I want to know. He might be a useless specimen but he's from my patch, and he went south to work, not to die, it that's what happened to him. I wouldn't put it past them cockneys. 'Here' a dead 'un, not one of ours, another bloody northener, when's the next load of rubbish going out to the tip?' It's time they knew they've got me to answer to!'
This was the nearest thing to a radical political statement Pascoe had ever heard from the Superintendent. It wasn't going to usher in the Socialist Millennium, but shouted loud enough, it might cause a little unease in Thatcherland.
The side-plots involve the staging of a cycle of Mystery Plays as organized and directed by the controversial local theatre personality Eileen Chung who plans to rope Dalziel himself into the production in the role of God with the aid of her friend Ellie Pascoe and her somewhat unwilling husband. And there is a series of anonymous notes appearing on the Superintendent's desk which promise yet another suicide, unless the secret identity of Dalziel's 'Dark Lady' can be unveiled in time. The climactic scene is a completely unexpected shocker.
This was again one of the best of the Dalziel & Pascoe series that I've read in my current 2022 re-read mini-binge (I don't own all of them) due to the extensive characterizations that author Hill develops throughout and the constant entertainment of Dalziel's outrageous statements and sometime off the wall deductions.
Cover image of the original Collins Crime Club hardcover edition (1990). Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I re-read Bones and Silence due to a recent discovery of my old mystery paperbacks from the 1980s in a storage locker cleanout. I was also curious about the precedents for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb in the Slough House espionage series in the personality of Reginald Hill's Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel, which Herron has acknowledged.
Book haul of the early Dalziel and Pascoe paperbacks, mostly from Grafton Books in the 1980s. Image sourced from Twitter.
Trivia and Link
Bones and Silence was adapted for television in 1998 as Episode 3 of Series 3 of the long running TV series of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007). The entire episode is posted on YouTube here, but it is formatted in a way that makes it hard to watch.