Child’s Play (Dalziel and Pascoe 9) by Reginald Hill

Gruff of Sodding Greendale…

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

During the funeral of Gwendoline Huby, a stranger appears and then just as suddenly disappears again. Could this be the long lost son Mrs Huby had always hoped would one day return? Alexander Huby had gone missing in Italy in WW2 and, although the authorities and his father accepted that he had been killed in action, Mrs Huby never would. Now the rich old lady has complicated matters by leaving her wealth to her missing son, much to the annoyance of her extended family and of the three charities who will eventually get the money, but not until either many years have passed or Alexander is proved dead. There’s no mystery about Mrs Huby’s death – she died of old age. But when the funereal stranger turns up dead too not long after, Dalziel and Pascoe must confirm if he was indeed the missing son, and find out which of the other beneficiaries might have decided to cut short the wait for their inheritance. Meantime, Wieldy’s secret is in danger – a young man has turned up claiming to be the friend of Wield’s former lover, Maurice, and is threatening to tell the local papers that there is a gay man serving in the Mid Yorks CID.

Good grief! It seems so odd now that the idea of being outed as gay would have effectively ended Wield’s career as recently as 1986, but indeed I vividly remember the salacious outrage of the press whenever a police officer or anyone in a prominent position was found to be gay, and the vicious outing of people who were not ready to be outed into a society where homophobia was still legally sanctioned. Seems to me from memory that the public was way ahead of the authorities and the press on this one – actual people didn’t seem much to care, not ones of my generation anyway. Hill handles the issue with his usual compassion and sense of truth – Wield is a figure of neither fun nor pity, though we feel for him in his dilemma over whether to out himself before the press does it for him. This bit of the storyline also deepens the characterisation of Dalziel, letting us see a different side to him which he normally keeps well hidden behind his uncouth, strictly non-PC persona.

The actual murder plot is very good, with plenty of suspects all with strong motives. Mrs Huby’s family are a quirky bunch, from aspiring and not very good actor Rod, to little Lexie, whose diminutive form and quiet manner cover a steely determination to get what she wants out of life, to Lexie’s dad, John Huby, the comic relief whose dreams of a big inheritance have been shattered on learning that all he’d been left was Mrs Huby’s favourite dog, long ago deceased and stuffed, and known as Gruff of Greendale. There are also the representatives of the three charities and Mrs. Huby’s forbidding Danvers-like housekeeper-cum-companion, Miss Keach. Hill often has one of his regulars take the forefront with the others in the background, but in this one, Dalziel, Pascoe and Wield all have important roles, giving it added pleasure for me since all three are such great characters.

I listened to the audiobook version – my second experience of Colin Buchanan narrating. I must say that none of the issues I had with the last book troubled me this time – his Yorkshire accents sounded more Yorkshire, his Dalziel seemed more in tune with how I’d expect Dalziel to sound, and he doesn’t seem to race through the narration at quite the same speed. I don’t know whether it was really better or if I’ve just got used to his style, but either way I enjoyed his performance considerably more in this one.

Reginald Hill

By this point Hill is beginning to play with light-hearted literary references, as he would do more and more as the series progresses, and this one is presented as a three-act tragicomedy. The underlying story is quite dark and Wieldy’s dilemma certainly has an air of tragedy, but overall I find this one quite light in tone, with a lot of humour in it. Again in terms of plot it would work fine as a standalone, but knowing the three lead characters from the earlier books makes the interactions between them more satisfying. As always with this series, highly recommended.

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