Dialogues of the Dead - Hardcover

Hill, Reginald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385658729 ISBN 13: 9780385658720

Publisher: Doubleday Canada, 2002

Synopsis

A man drowns and another dies in a motorbike crash. Two accidents, yet in a pair of so called dialogues sent to the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette, apparently as entries in a short story competition, someone seems to be claiming responsibility for the deaths. But when the story is leaked and a third indisputable murder takes place. Dalziel and Pascoe find themselves playing a game with no rules against an opponent known only as the Wordman.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

?Reginald Hill has raised the classical British mystery to new heights.?
? The New York Times Book Review

Acclaimed as ?the master of form and the sorcerer of style,?* the Grand Master of British psychological suspense returns to weave wordplay and murder into a lethal tapestry that only Dalziel and Pascoe can unravel.

With characteristic precision,insidious wit, and unparalleled insight into the serpentine criminal mind, Hill offers readers his most diabolical surprise to date.

Dialogues of the Dead

Paronomania [n. A clinical obsession with word games]

In the Beginning was the Word...

And the Word was Murder.

A motorist dies after plunging off a bridge.... A motorcyclist is found dead after a fatal encounter with a tree. Two apparently innocuous tragedies ... until two Dialogues are submitted to a local literary competition, claiming responsibility for the deaths. But has anybody heard the Word?

When a beautiful, unscrupulous journalist meets her Maker in fact, and then in fiction, as victim of The Third Dialogue, Dalziel and Pascoe take note and find themselves involved in a deadly duel of wits against an opponent known only as the Wordman: a brilliant sociopath who leaves literary clues in his wake ... and who hides in plain sight.
Contestants, are you ready?

Reginald Hill?s books consistently combine wordplay and sleuthing, but the Master is in superb form in Dialogues of the Dead. There are enough clues to make a patchwork quilt, but in this test of wills just who is playing against whom?

Is it the Wordman versus the police? Or the killer against his victims? Or is the real game between you, dear reader, and Reginald Hill himself, at his most intriguing, most enticing, most elusive best? Just when you think you have your killer, guess again. Someone may have conceived the perfect crime.

Let the games begin...

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Reginald Hill:

“Hill remains one of the finest crime writers of this era.”
— Booklist (starred review)

“Hill’s polished, sophisticated novels are intelligently written and permeated with his sly and delightful sense of humor. More than most other mystery novels, Hill’s DalzielPascoe novels are enjoyable as much for their characters as for their complicated, suspenseful mystery plots.”
— The Christian Science Monitor

“Reginald Hill blends civility and madness in a most agreeable way.”
— New York

“A lot of people write classic detective stories, but Reginald Hill is one of the elite few who write classy classics.”
— The Baltimore Sun

“The real joy of the Dalziel-Pascoe books is the writing and the characterizations. Mr. Hill has such disparate writers as Trollope, Beerbohm, Sayers and Shaw in his blood.”
— The New York Times

“There is no doubt that England’s Reginald Hill is one of the greats.”
— Rocky Mountain News

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday Canada
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0385658729
• ISBN 13: 9780385658720
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432