Book Review: Death's Jest-Book

Reviewed By: Ruth Jordan - RAM

Death's Jest-Book     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Reginald Hill
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Dalziel & Pascoe # 19
2003, HarperCollins, 576 pages / $ 25.95

It’s Christmas and Franny Roote has returned to haunt one half of one of mystery’s most formidable duos. DCI Pascoe has unlocked his Roote drawer, again, determined to find the nefarious undertones in letters received from said nemesis. As the rest of the squad deals with other matters police and DS Dalziel watches with antipathy, Pascoe is drawn further and further into his obsession. And so was I. When Hill is at his best there is nobody who writes with a more poetic and enticing style and the Franny Roote letters are beautiful.

And yet they are only a part of what is so right about this book. From the precarious love life of DC Bowler to rent boy Edgar Wield every character and scene involving said characters is more than window dressing. It is a gifted author who can weave you into his plot without you realizing it.

While my eyes absorbed a flurry of words craftily scripted my mind was ingesting an intricate and wholly enveloping story. The conclusion of Death’s Jest Book is a beautiful, sad, cohesive and entirely romantic scene in modern literature that is a true nod to literature of the past.

Reginald Hill has once again shown me how wonderful these words we string together can be if they are handled by a deft pen.

Ruth Jordan - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ruth Jordan - RAM