| Title | : | A Killing Kindness (Dalziel \u0026 Pascoe, #6) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0586072519 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780586072516 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1980 |
Financial Times
When Mary Dinwoodie is found choked in a ditch following a night out with her boyfriend, a mysterious caller phones the local paper with a quotation from Hamlet. The career of the Yorkshire Choker is underway. If Superintendent Dalziel is unimpressed by the literary phone calls, he is downright angry when Sergeant Wield calls in a clairvoyant. Linguists, psychiatrists, mediums -- it's all a load of nonsense as far as he is concerned, designed to make a fool of him. And meanwhile the Choker strikes again -- and again!
A Killing Kindness (Dalziel \u0026 Pascoe, #6) Reviews
-
The Shakespearean Strangler
Review of the Grafton Books paperback edition (1987) of the Collins Crime Club hardcover original (1980)I say we will have no more marriages, those that married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go." - excerpt from Shakespeare's
Hamlet, used as a taunt by the killer in A Killing Kindness.
Yorkshire CID Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel (pronounced "dee-ELL") and assistants Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe and Detective Sergeant Wield are faced with a serial killer case in A Killing Kindness. Various seemingly unrelated women are being strangled and the killer begins making phone-calls to the local press quoting excerpts from Hamlet for no apparent reason. The Yorkshire CID are stumped and begin using the assistance of everyone from clairvoyants to speech dialect experts in an effort to break the case.
The non-politically correct Dalziel provokes the suspects, witnesses and lawyers in his own inimitable style, accompanied by the now standard belching and scratching which are his trademarks. He does provide a sort of defense for his methods though:'That wasn't exactly conciliatory,' said Pascoe as they moved rapidly away.
'You don't conciliate that sort,' said Dalziel. 'Make 'em think you're a thick, racist, sexist, pig. Then they underestimate you and overreach themselves.'
'Ah,' said Pascoe and wondered privately what strange self-image Dalziel kept locked away in his heart.
The sideplots provide further background on Pascoe's home life with feminist Ellie, who is expecting their first child. Ellie crosses swords with Dalziel in various satisfactory ways. We also learn behind the scenes that Sergeant Wield is a closeted homosexual in a long distance relationship.
The case is solved in the end of course when Pascoe finds a breakthrough clue. The finale is perhaps a touch unrealistic, when justice is served through apparent supernatural means. Still this was a satisfactory episode of the series.
Cover image of the original Collins Crime Club hardcover edition (1980). Image sourced from
Wikipedia.
I re-read A Killing Kindness due to a recent discovery of my old mystery paperbacks from the 1980s in a storage locker cleanout. I was also curious about the precedents for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb in the Slough House espionage series in the personality of Reginald Hill's Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel, which Herron has
acknowledged.
Book haul of the early Dalziel and Pascoe paperbacks, mostly from Grafton Books in the 1980s. Image sourced from
Twitter.
Trivia and Link
A Killing Kindness was adapted for television in 1997 as Episode 2 of Series 2 of the long running TV series of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007). The entire episode is posted on YouTube
here, but it is formatted in a way that makes it hard to watch. -
To thine own self be true...
When Sergeant Wield visits the mother of murder victim Brenda Sorby, he finds that Mrs Sorby has called in gypsy clairvoyant Rosetta Stanhope to try to contact her dead daughter. Politely, Wield listens in, but when the local press get hold of the story it is blown up as the police having called in a psychic because they’re baffled, and Superintendent Dalziel is not pleased! The press have a point, though – Brenda is the third apparent victim of the murderer the press have dubbed the Choker and the police are indeed baffled. There seems no obvious connection between the victims, and while the first two were carefully laid out by the murderer, poor Brenda was found dumped in the local canal. However, all three women were strangled, and after each murder the local paper received an anonymous phonecall quoting a line from Hamlet. Then, as Dalziel, Pascoe and Wield search for leads, a fourth murder takes place...
The thing I love about this series is how it evolves over time, both in terms of the recurring characters, and in the quality of the plotting. This one dates from 1980, a full decade after the first book and a decade that saw the beginning of lots of changes in social attitudes. Hill could have simply changed the characters of his two leads as many writers tried to do with varying degrees of success. But instead he allows them to grow and adapt. At this point, Dalziel remains the rude, boorish, foul-mouthed dinosaur, but Pascoe, now married to the feminist Ellie, has matured into a semi-decent bloke, who might still expect his dinner to be on the table when he gets home but isn’t too put out when it’s left for him in the oven instead, while Ellie is off out with her feminist friends. For the early ‘80s, this almost counted as being a New Man! Even Dalziel will gradually reveal that most of his boorishness is an act and that he might be even more advanced than Pascoe in his heart. Dalziel doesn’t care if his officers are male or female, gay or straight, white or black – he’s equally rude and offensive to them all, but they can count on his total support should anyone else try to mess with them.
Having brought Ellie in a few books earlier to counterbalance the sexism and boost the feminist angle, in this one Hill brings Wieldy to the fore. I can’t say definitively that Wield is the first sympathetic depiction of a gay policeman in mainstream British crime fiction, but he’s certainly the first I came across and it was pretty astounding at the time. Especially since the portrayal of him is so good – not in any way stereotyped, not suggesting that being gay makes him weak or feminine or “perverted” or any of the other negative characteristics that fictional gay people were so often given at that period. Wield is a normal guy who happens to be gay. For younger people used to that kind of portrayal of gay people, it’s hard to explain how revolutionary it seemed back in the day. And the joy is that Wieldy is so easy to like! Again, I have no evidence that Wield changed perceptions of homosexuality in Hill’s readership but I’d be amazed if he didn’t. He’s one example of the way Hill constantly pushed at the boundaries, but subtly and with warmth and humour, rather than beating the reader over the head with polemics and “messages”.
The plot in this one is excellent – probably the first in the series where I felt Hill got it completely right. It’s complex and convincing, and dark. While it involves the murder of young women, it avoids the salaciousness and voyeurism that often accompanies that, and the killer’s motivation is original. I’m desperately trying to avoid anything which could be a spoiler, so I’ll simply say that the motivation aspect gives the book the psychological depth that became a trademark of Hill’s work as the series developed. That’s what makes Dalziel and Pascoe such a good team – Dalziel knows how to bully evidence out of the unwilling, but Pascoe knows how to use empathy and understanding to tease out the reason for the crimes.
When I first read this series, it was around this book that I first joined in and I must say I’d recommend it as a good starting point to people coming to the series fresh. While all the books are readable, there’s no doubt the very early ones feel a little dated now, and not as polished, whereas this one stands up very well to modern eyes, I think. I found that I was more forgiving of the sexism in the earlier ones when I backtracked to them after learning to love the characters once they had become more developed, and from this point on the series just gets better and better. There are twenty-four of them in total, so if you haven’t already read them, you really ought to make a start soon – they get my highest recommendation!
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com -
This is quite possibly the best of the Dalziel and Pascoe novels that I've read so far. It's a very well paced police procedural with enough twists and turns to keep you hooked until the very end. If you haven't tried this series before, this book would be a good place to start; it's an excellent example of most of the things the series does right.
One thing that particularly impressed me about this book is how it deals with a lot of difficult subject matter. There is a serial killer who is murdering young women; there is a nearby encampment of Romany, some of whom fall under suspicion for the crime; there's the return of the radical feminist group we first met in A Pinch of Snuff; and there are some moments when the police resort to some decidedly dodgy tactics to get their evidence. The opportunities for the author to do something cringeworthy in relation to ethnicity or gender are numerous, as are the moments where I might expect another author to deliver a crude political rant. Hill evades these pitfalls. His characters, although they can be pretty extreme, never seem like stereotypes to me. The world Hill depicts can be pretty ugly, but you never feel like he's stacking the deck to make a point. -
My typical objection to these books is the prejudice shown by the main characters in terms of heavy sexism (usually). This time I was excited to see an unexpected bit of progress in the form of gay sergeant Wield, who's perspective we are shown and who's life is pretty normal - unusual for the time in a mainstream book (from the limited books I've read produced in this era).
Alas the slurs thrown at the Romany people cancel out any sense of progress overall... So if you're looking to read this book, and get mad about the assumptions and prejudices towards travellers and the like, perhaps give it a miss.
That aside (I seem to say that alot in reviews of detective fiction written pre-2000...) the plot was engaging and I hadn't figured it out ahead of when it all came together. Adding the new perspective of Sgt. Wield was great - and I'm hoping we get more of him in the next few. Dalziel was a little harder to get my head around this time though, so perhaps we'll get more of his insights in the next book. -
Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe are onto another series of murders. It starts with a middle-aged woman found strangled and laid out with her hands crossed over her chest. Soon others follow, young women, calls for the police to stop the "Yorkshire Choker" and phone calls from someone or someones to the local newspaper that quote Hamlet. What is the connection to all of them and why the quotes? Dalziel and Pascoe may not always get along, but they can solve a mystery.
A very good read, full of color and twist and turns, as well as a wonderful introduction of a new character that I hope to see continue: Sgt. Wield, a gay policeman who manages to play his cards really well in interviews. A good foil to both of the main characters and in this book he is one of the pivotal characters in hunting down clues and helping solve the case. -
Reginald Hill is my favourite crime writer, as masterly a storyteller and plotter as one could wish for, and an expert in characterisation, sketching his protagonists with a few well-chosen words, where other writers would waste whole pages.
The intricate plot of this Dalziel and Pascoe investigation shows us not only Sergeant Wield in a different, more human light. It gives the reader greater insight into the Pascoe marriage, where Ellie Pascoe is expecting their first child.
Essentially, this is a story about the vulnerability of women, who in this case are being stalked and murdered by a mysterious serial killer whom the press have dubbed the "Yorkshire Choker" on account of his strangling his victims. Not content with that, he then calls a local newspaper to brag about it with quotations from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Danger's lurking everywhere for Women
No woman or girl seems safe. The killer strikes by day and by night, in deserted areas as well as crowded ones. Without an obvious link between the victims, the police struggle to find leads that will help them stop the next murder.
Calling in the help of many different experts, including voice analysts from the local college and a clairvoyant, Dalziel is under a lot of pressure to find the Choker before he can strike again. However, despite many man-hours spent on interviewing potential witnesses, no clue emerges as to the identity of the murderer. The story is largely told from Pascoe's perspective, quite possibly because at this point in his life Pascoe feels more attune to the vulnerability of women.
When the Legal System fails Victims
The ending is rather strange for a Reginald Hill novel, unusual in that it is almost supernatural. The author plays with the reader's perception of what is paranormal or normal throughout the novel, beginning his tale with a séance that takes place after three women have already been killed. Again, this is an unusual start - we don't get the first victim, second victim etc build up as is typical for crime novels.
Instead, the reader is hurled straight into an investigation that has been stalling ever since the second victim was found. Through this device, the reader gets a good insight into what it must be like for real investigators, when everything seems stacked against them and the press and public are hounding them for results.
I found the ending rather a let-down at first - but then realised this is a let-down stage-managed by the author. Hill wants us to feel the same frustration as the police officers in charge of the case, who more often than not see cases collapse due to lack of hard evidence or savvy lawyers who often quite happy to let villains go, if it helps further their own legal careers.
It's an intricate novel, highly critical of the old-fashioned attitude a section of male society has towards women. Although many of the crusty attitudes men display in this novel are firmly late 1970's, I have met enough of such chauvinist fossils to relate to the women in this story and to understand the warped way in which the killer's mind works. Men, even today, mostly regard women as their property, as chattel belonging to their household, not as individuals with hopes, dreams and aspirations of their own.
Sadly, there are many real Chokers around, who may not physically kill their wives or girlfriends, but who nonetheless choke the spirit and life force out of women with their put-downs, their possessiveness and constant criticising. We have met them all, haven't we girls? We can only wish each and every one of them will eventually meet with a real Romani chovihani's curse, just like Reginal Hill's Choker does at the end of this thrilling whodunit. -
There appears to be a new serial killer in Yorkshire as "A Killing Kindness" begins, as first one, then another, and another, woman is found strangled to death. The deaths seem to be ritualistic, until the fourth one occurs which is different from all the others. And there seem to be mysterious phone calls, quoting Shakespeare, that are related to the deaths as well. Superintendent Dalziel is furious when one of his Sergeants apparently calls in a gypsy clairvoyant, but there may be no other way to solve the case before there are still more deaths…."A Killing Kindness" is the sixth Dalziel and Pascoe novel, published in 1980, and like the previous novels in this series, there’s a serious problem with the casual sexism that is a constant in the story. But if one can get past that difficulty, the story itself is intriguing, and of course the main characters are all interesting, particularly as the “regulars” intermingle and change in their relationships. The ending was wholly unsatisfying, though, so only a mild recommendation from me.
-
I have been reading this series over the last few months, starting at the beginning. They have just been getting better and better. This one is by far the most amusing, the most emotionally mature, and the most carefully planned of the series so far. I have never before read a murder mystery which so completely fooled me, in spite of clues being hidden in plain sight. There were twists and turns right to the last few pages. Meticulously planned and deftly executed.
-
Hmm . . . The entry in Goodreads says that this is Dalziel & Pascoe #6, but the cover of the book says that it is #5. The story is intriguing and well-told. The author is a skilled writer, and this book did not disappoint. The ending was a surprise, even though the murderer was not (to me, anyway). The story seems to be focused more on Pascoe than on Dalziel, and additional development is completed on Sgt. Wield's character, which added to the quality of the story. This is an easy read, and even though it was written in 1980, the only parts of it that showed its age were the references to disco. ;)
-
This was the only one of the Dalziel and Pascoe series that I hadn't read yet. I fits in well with the rest of the series, although, I felt that there was a bit too much Pascoe and not enough Dalziel here.
An interesting thing for me was that it was the first time I read a large print edition - it was the only copy of the book in our library system. It wasn't unpleasant to read the larger print, but I do prefer more normal size. I hope that this wasn't a harbinger of my future but, if it is, I guess it will be better to read large print than to not be able to read at all. -
Another great installment in the series. Dalziel's his usual vulgar self, Pascoe's mind is on the pregnant Ellie, and poor Wield is having troubles with his boyfriend. The twist in this one comes after Pascoe figures out who the killer is and the reader gets a full confession from them. But a bunch of girls have to die first—which is very sad.
-
Fair to middling. Don't want to spoil this, but the villain's identity reminds me a lot of the one in book 23.
The book was first published in 1981, so that world is convincingly drawn. Not much in the way of computers, mobile or smartphones and DNA and stuff. How on earth did they solve crimes??? "Little grey cells" and footwork all the way?
7 Dalziel & Pascoes read, 17 to go ... -
My favorite of the series so far... If there was a 4+ stars, I would have given it.
-
This book was awesome. The best Dalziel and Pascoe I've read so far. I was about to switch to another series and read a different title but I can't, I need more of my favorite detectives.
-
I love the fat man!
-
Excellent book in a great series
-
I'm familiar with these books because of the UK TV series, so I decided to give it a try. I won't be returning. The main characters aren't particularly likable, and the "who" in "whodunit" is telegraphed fairly early, always a turnoff for me. Well, at least I know now.
-
1.5
Lacking any emotion, way too padded with other stories and red-herrings, too many names and racist and a bit sexist to the point where it can’t just be considered showing a character’s personality and beliefs. I felt no connection to the story and little mystery or suspense. There were also too many comments that judged and took advantage of women’s bodies. -
As far as I can tell the Yorkshire Ripper came into being in 1975 (although I'd guess that the nickname didn't get invented until a while after that) and Peter Sutcliffe wasn't arrested until 1981. This fact is interesting because this book was published in 1980 and concerns the career of the fictional "Yorkshire Choker". Since the Yorkshire Ripper looms large in my childhood memories of the news (he gets equal billing with Ethiopian famines) I found there was something rather disturbing about reading a book which must have its origins in that case.
I wonder why Hill decided to create a fictional serial killer for his detective duo. Whilst the nicknames for the real life and fictional killers instantly demand a comparison I don't think that the killer in the book is particularly modelled on the real life version even given that background details needed in a book like this wouldn't have been available in 1980. I wonder if writing a book about Yorkshire police in 1980 and not having them dealing with a serial killer would have been a stranger thing than the kind of crossover between real life and fiction that I see reading this book twenty years later.
There's at least one rather clever device used in this book that I haven't come across in mystery fiction before and the home lives of the detectives fit in neatly with the plot. I have some reservations about the actual ending of this book but on the whole I thought it was pretty good and probably my second favourite of the series this far after A Pinch of Snuff.
[This is book 6 in the Dalziel and Pascoe series]
-
Twenty-four books in the series and somehow I missed this one - the sixth. I was surprised at all the reviews that described this as the best in the series; Dialogues of the Dead and Death's Jest-Book, which come much later, still seem to me among the best British police procedurals ever written, brilliantly plotted, funny, and oh-so-clever. Compared to those this was serviceable and workmanlike, and even though I didn't see the conclusion coming, it felt lacking in motive. But with those three great characters- Dalziel, Pascoe, and Wield - it was impossible for the late Reginald Hill to write a bad book.
-
Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe stories are usually full of colorful characters and even more colorful dialogue. This book might have those things but the narrator makes the listener work for it. Buchanan does the voices well but the tone and cadence is all wrong. He could be reading a telephone book
-
Fifth in the Dalziel and Pascoe series. Another rather complicated plot with a somewhat implausible conclusion; yet the characters of Dalziel and Pascoe (and Sargeant Wiese) are so well drawn that it continues the reader’s interest.
-
Not the best Reginald Hill, but engrossing all the same.
-
Nicely done and very funny at parts. When the one guy said all that stuff it helped bring back a few of the bits I'd list earlier.
-
3-1/2
