Arms and the Women (Reginald Hill) PB-Good

someone Attempts To Abduct Ellie Pascoe, And Her Friend, Daphne Alderman, Is Assaulted By A Man Keeping Watch On The Pascoe House. Dalziel, Pascoe And Wield Feel Certain There Must Be A Link Here With One Of Pascoe”s Cases, Either Current Or Past. Only Dc Shirley Novello Wonders Whether Perhaps These Events Might Have More To Do With Ellie Than Her Husband.

while The Men Concentrate On Their Individual Theories, Ellie, Her Daughter Rosie, Daphne, And Novello (their Official Minder) Head For The Coast To The Supposed Safety Of The Alderman”s Holiday Home, Cleets Cottage. But Their Flight Proves Somewhat Futile As Ellie”s Would-be Abductor Continues To Send Her Letters Of Possibly Threatening Intent, Composed In A Strange Elizabethan English.

publishers Weekly

the Young And Cultured Peter Pascoe And The Rotund, Gruff Andy Dalziel Have Been Paired To Memorable Effect In Several Outstanding Crime Novels (most Recently, Beyond The Wood). Now, Hill”s Loyal Readers Are Presented With Four Novellas That, In Turn, Introduce The Pair, Let Each Take A Rare Solo Detecting Flight And, Perhaps Weirdest Of All, Enter A Space-age Future For An Almost Absurd Swansong For The Mismatched Twosome. Dalziel Is Taken Hostage In The First Story, The Last National Service Man, And The Young Pascoe Gets To Meet The Tough Yorkshire Copper For The First Time Under Very Strained Circumstances. Ghost Stories Permeate The Next Two Adventures, Pascoe”s Ghost And Dalziel” Ghost. In The First, Pascoe Hunts In Vain For A Missing Woman; In The Next, The Duo Sit Out A Long Night In A Haunted House, And Dalziel, After Several Good-sized Hits On The Whisky Bottle, Lets Slip A Few Secrets From His Past. Finally, In One Small Step, An Older, Gout-riddled Dalziel Is Taken Aboard A Space Ship At The Start Of The 21st Century, After A French Astronaut Trips And Dies Stepping Onto The Moon In Full View Of The Tv Cameras. As Always, Hill Enjoys Tampering With The Traditions Of The Genre And These Four Works Serve Less As Working Narratives Than As Welcome Changes Of Pace That Incorporate Character Studies, Intimate And Unguarded Moments And Flights Of Pure Fancy. (nov.)