Jules Jones

57) Reginald Hill -- An Advancement of Learning

Re-read of the second Dalziel and Pascoe novel, previously reviewed as follows:

[2006-04-04] The second Dalziel and Pascoe novel sees the pair at a college of higher education after the discovery of a corpse under a statue's foundation block. Naturally, life gets even more complicated, and not just because they have to wade through both student and staff politics in their pursuit of the truth. Fresh corpses are provided, and it's up to Dalziel and Pascoe to decide which were murder and which were suicide, ideally without becoming corpses themselves.

Dalziel has no time for students, and the feeling's mutual. But Dalziel doesn't let his dislike lead him into underestimating his opponents, while the students make the mistake of thinking that Dalziel's a fascist pig and therefore stupid. Pascoe's feelings are more ambiguous, as he was a graduate recruit to the police force. His former university friends don't approve of his choice of his career, and his liberal sympathies don't always endear him to his colleagues, but this case reassures him that being a copper was the best way for _him_ to change the world for the better. The pair's different experiences and views combine to form a formidable team in this setting, something they'll need to deal with the criminal they're trying to pin down. Even near the end, it seems that it may be a case of knowing who and how without having quite enough evidence to prove it...

This early entry in the series is a relatively simple police procedural, rather than the complex literary game to be found in some of the later novels, but still has Hill's characteristic style and wittiness. It's one for all fans of the series, whether your taste runs to the shorter novels or the long, psychologically complex ones, as it sets up some of the series background. Apart from developing Pascoe's character, it introduces two of the recurring non-police characters. Pascoe is reunited with old university friend Ellie Soper, whom he later marries: and this is the first appearance of Franny Roote, who reappears much later in the series as a major character in a story arc spanning several books. And it is, of course, an entertaining book in its own right.

LibraryThing entry

You're about to get spammed with the book log, as I'd been keeping notes in a text file as I went, but for various reasons (such as going to a con) hadn't posted each book as I read it. Worse, I didn't write up the last half as I went, and now I can't even remember the order I read them in... Here's the first book for February:

11) Jonathan Gash -- The Rich and the Profane

20th in the Lovejoy series. It starts with a young woman asking Lovejoy to teach her how to steal an antique from an auction to spite her rich aunt, and ends with mayhem in the Channel Islands. Along the way Lovejoy gets involved with a vast array of people wanting to exploit him, usually for purposes he doesn't understand until too late; impersonates an impresario; and creates on the fly and on the run one of the biggest and boldest scams he's ever come up with to save his own neck and a few others.

I found it a bit hard to keep track of what was going on, but I think this had more to do with reading it on and off over the course of a week than any fault in the book. Lovejoy is his usual whining, womanising, self-pitying self, with the usual constant stream of chatter about antiques. And as usual, underneath the unselfconscious whining and the scamming large and small, he's actually trying to do the right thing by the people he thinks deserving of it. I prefer the earlier books in the series, but wouldn't mind reading this one again.

LibraryThing entry