HarperCollins, London 2004

Although this is my first encounter with Superintendent Dalziel and DCI Pescoe of the Mid-Yorkshire Police, it is their 21rst case together, and it shows. Hill presumably got fed up with all that crime-writing business and needs an extra kick to get him going once again. So he centers the plot round Emily Dickinson´s poems, which he recites and interprets in abundance. Apart from that Hill loves washing all the dirty linen in all the people´s closets like the proverbial old washerwoman. And he hates politics and the “funny guys” from Secret Service. Dalziel and Pescoe don´t really bother with investigative work, the main characters give their statements free on cassettes(!) for everybody to share.

All rather boring and old-fashioned. Now I will never meet young, vigorous Dalziel and Pescoe in the prime of their lives.