Death’s Jest Book, by Reginald Hill
It’s been quite a while since I’ve reviewed a Dalziel/Pascoe novel;
mostly because I acquired its predecessor,
Dialogues of the Dead, while I was in
Australia a couple of years ago, and apparently the Commonwealth
countries get them before we do. Consequently, it’s been a long dry spell.
No matter. Death’s Jest Book is worth the wait. Not only is it
a fine murder mystery in its own right, easily as good as the earlier
books in the series, but it also picks up a number of threads that
Dialogues left dangling and ties them neatly into bows.
The enigmatic Franny Roote–is he an innocent man, or a charming
sociopath? And will the true perpetrator of the Wordman murders ever be
discovered? I hesitate to say any more for fear of giving something
important away.
It’s an odd and unusual book, even for Hill, and I read it with great
enjoyment. For obvious reasons, though, it’s not the one to start with.