The Price of Butcher's Meat (Dalziel and Pascoe)
by Reginald Hill
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Book Summary Information
Author: Reginald HillEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-04
ISBN: 0061451932
Number of pages: 528
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of The Price of Butcher's Meat (Dalziel and Pascoe)
Book Review: Fans of classic British literature will enjoy this allusion, and lovers of a good mystery will be totally engaged
Summary: 5 Stars
THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT is the 23rd installment in Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe mystery series and immediately follows up his previous entry, DEATH COMES FOR THE FAT MAN. The "fat man" of the title is Police Superintendent Andy Dalziel, who spent that entire novel in a coma as the result of a terrorist bombing attack that seriously injured him.
The current book begins with Dalziel convalescing at a spa in a small British seaside resort town known as Sandytown. His physical wounds have mostly healed, but concern still remains for the mental anguish he has experienced. While feeling like himself, he is still somewhat forgetful and even shows up at a Sandytown pub garbed in his bathrobe and wearing only one slipper. He is given a personal recorder --- that he cleverly names Mildred --- by the head of the Avalon Spa where he is recovering. The intention of the recorder is to allow Dalziel to freely capture all his thoughts in an effort to break through his short-term memory damage.
The style of THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT is quite unique. The first 162 pages are written in either email form or as transcripts from Dalziel's recordings on Mildred. The emails are from another character, Charlotte "Charley" Heywood, sent to her sister on a mission in Africa. From these sources, we are given a view of the events happening at both the Avalon Spa and the small village of Sandytown and, as a result, receive first-hand introductions to the many characters involved as they interact with either Dalziel or Heywood.
The story jumps to straight narrative in between the email/transcript passages. The cause of this shift in style is that a murder has occurred at a barbecue celebration. The victim is the local town matron and resident rich person Lady Denham, who has made her millions as a result of her late husband's pig farm and ham industry. The irony is that her body is found shoved inside a pig roasting basket over the barbecue that everyone was eating from. Because she was in the process of reworking her last will and testament, there are several characters with good reason to want her dead --- either out of bitterness or to expedite the will payout to the beneficiaries.
Called to lead the murder investigation is Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe and his team of investigators. Pascoe reports directly to Dalziel and now must deal with him as a potential witness. Additionally, Dalziel's old habits kick in and he begins to "assist" in the investigation as well. Several witnesses give stories that don't exactly match, and the investigators seem to be running around in circles with no direct evidence of who was responsible for the murder of Lady Denham. To make things that much more interesting, a mysterious character from Dalziel and Pascoe's past, Franny Roote, is also a resident of the Avalon Spa as he is permanently paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair bound. What makes his presence so alarming is that both Dalziel and Pascoe thought he was dead.
The murder spree continues as another body is found in addition to one of the many suspects being thrown from a cliff and left in critical condition. Pascoe and his team are at a total loss and now under the gun to find the murder(s) before more victims pile up. One of the characters likens the events that are transpiring to Agatha Christie's novel/play, THE HOLLOW --- whereby the character you dismiss from the frame because they've been caught apparently in flagrante can turn out to be the perpetrator after all. Without giving anything away, the reader will be challenged to figure out who is to blame here.
Hill's writing style always brings a refreshing new view to a genre filled with authors who continually publish fine mystery series themselves. However, there are not many who match Hill's ability to capture the interpersonal play between criminal and investigator as he has done regularly with the Dalziel and Pascoe series. At one point in the novel a character comes to the realization that death is the cure for all diseases. Funny enough, that plays into the U.K. title when it was released there earlier this year. THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT comes from a quote within Jane Austen's SANDITON. Fans of classic British literature will enjoy this allusion, and lovers of a good mystery will be totally engaged by Hill's latest effort.
--- Reviewed by Ray Palen
Summary of The Price of Butcher's Meat (Dalziel and Pascoe)
A bomb couldn't kill Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel?but his convalescence at the Avalon Clinic in the quaint seaside resort of Sandytown ("Home of the Healthy Holiday") just might. Sneaking out to the local pub provides Fat Andy with a bit of necessary diversion, allowing him a pint or two on the sly, plus an update on the world of trouble outside the clinic?including the very different plans of a pair of powerful landowners for putting Sandytown more prominently on the map. But when a rather macabre murder calls Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe onto the scene, Fat Andy realizes that Avalon itself is no sanctuary from the lethal secrets of the local elite?or from the death tide that now, suddenly, is rising quite rapidly.Literature & Fiction Books
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