Good Morning Midnight - Hardcover

Hill, Reginald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060528079 ISBN 13: 9780060528072

Publisher: Harper, 2004

Synopsis

"A complex and deeply satisfying tale...one part traditional English whodunit and one part shadowy corporate thriller." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From Reginald Hill, acclaimed mystery writer and winner of the prestigious Diamond Dagger Award, comes a brilliant psychological story of a mysterious death that echoes one in the past.

Prominent businessman Pal Maciver locked himself in his study and shot himself. It's an open-and-shut case, as far as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is concerned. Except...Maciver's father died in an almost identical manner ten years earlier, and "Fat Andy" was the investigating officer. Pal's strange and strained relationship with his beautiful, enigmatic stepmother, Kay Kafka, also raises warning flags. And the family's shady corporate dealings carry two apparent acts of self-slaughter far beyond the borders of Yorkshire, causing policeman Peter Pascoe to question his superior's reticence...and his motives.

About this title

About the Author

Reginald Hill, acclaimed English crime writer, was a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his novels featuring Superintendent Andy Dalziel and DCI Peter Pascoe. Their appearances won Hill numerous awards, including a CWA Golden Dagger and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award. The Dalziel and Pascoe stories were also adapted into a hugely popular BBC TV series. Hill died in 2012.

From the Back Cover

Hailed by the New York Times as "the master of form and sorcerer of style," Reginald Hill is undoubtedly at the top of his form in this gripping story of a mysterious death that echoes one in the past.

"Somewhere distantly a church clock began to strike midnight. In the muffling fog, it sounded both familiar and threatening, like the bell on a warning buoy tolled by the ocean's rhythmic swell."

Good Morning, Midnight

Yorkshire's coppers Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe are investigating the suicide of prominent businessman Pal Maciver. It seems to be a clear-cut case: he shot himself while sitting at his desk in his locked study.

But things are not quite what they seem. When Pascoe digs deeper, he finds threads going back to another, almost identical death -- that of Maciver's father. And even more disturbing: Pascoe's boss, Detective Superintendent Dalziel, was the officer on that case.

With Dalziel checking his every move, Pascoe is forced to lead his own investigation, plunging into the past to uncover truths about the Maciver family, particularly Pal's relationship with his step-mother, the beautiful and enigmatic Kay Kafka. He soon realizes that the implications of Maciver's death stretch far beyond the borders of Yorkshire. And when a key witness -- exotic hooker Dolores, "Lady of Pain" -- disappears, the death takes on a far more complicated and mysterious face.

Reviews

British writer and Dagger award-winning author Reginald Hill isn’t just verbose; he’s prolific as well. That the 21st installment of his Dalziel-Pascoe series (after 2003’s Death’s Jest-Book) turns its attention to America and international arms conspiracies strikes some critics as evidence that Hill’s mid-Yorkshire has been tapped out of story ideas. Worse yet, The Scotsman believes Dalziel has devolved from a character to a caricature. On the western side of the Atlantic, the critics welcome Hill’s intricate plots, large vocabulary and wit, and intelligent approach to the mystery genre. Hill "keeps the reader mesmerized," noted the Providence Journal.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

One part traditional English whodunit and one part shadowy corporate thriller, Diamond Dagger winner Hill's 21st Dalziel/Pascoe mystery (after 2003's Death's Jest-Book) weaves a complex and deeply satisfying tale. Pal Mciver is found dead, an apparent suicide, in a locked room of the old family house in Yorkshire. The circumstances mimic the suicide of his father, a former Ashur-Mac corporation executive, 10 years before. A book of Emily Dickinson poems found at the scene may hold clues to both deaths. Called in to investigate, detectives Peter Pascoe and Andy Dalziel find themselves entering an ever-widening and ever more intricate web of relationships. The particulars of some of these relationships hint at murder rather than suicide. Kay Kafka, Pal Mciver's stepmother, is particularly well drawn, a mixture of sadness, salaciousness, possible malice and cool intelligence. As the novel nimbly moves from character to character, it also calls into question the motives of Ashur-Mac, whose arms dealings ring a note of present-day relevance. Throughout, Pascoe and Dalziel are their usual witty, intelligent selves; they continue to be two of the more interesting police detectives in modern crime fiction. The descriptions of Dalziel are particularly fine: "like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, Dalziel provided a new and unignorable focus of attention." Hill has provided readers with a superior example of the mystery form—one with a deliciously cold sting in the final pages.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Here is the twenty-first entry in Hill's award-winning series starring two Yorkshire detectives. Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe (Dalziel being the irascible Detective Superintendent, with Detective Sergeant Pascoe working under him but mostly around him) are worth watching for the comic tensions in their relationship. This time out, the team investigates a locked-room suicide (Hill's descriptions of the elaborate preparations the suicide takes are especially chilling). The case seems as closed as the room in which the local businessman's body was found until Hill and Pascoe discover that this suicide was committed 10 years to the day after the victim's father committed suicide in the same way and that the new suicide has left a very damning cassette tape. A cut-and-dried case morphs into a cold-case scenario in this wickedly clever, classic Brit-mystery puzzle, loaded with Yorkshire atmosphere and mordant wit. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060528079
• ISBN 13: 9780060528072
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448