A Killing Kindness

A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"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 under way.

"If Detective Superintendent Dalziel is unimpressed by the literary phone calls, he's downright angry when Sergeant Wield calls in a clairvoyant.

"Linguists, psychiatrists, mediums -- it's all a load of bloody nonsense as far as he's concerned, designed to make fools of him and his department.

"And meanwhile the Choker strikes again ... and again ..."
~~ Back Cover

You know, I think I didn't care much for this little mystery. I've read several of the Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries, and thought I liked them. This is number 17 in the series, and I assume that the characters have gained depth as they've gone along. The trouble is, I don't really like Dalziel and his theory of policing. So as the book rollicked along towards the discovery of the Choker and the end, I was thinking I didn't care much for it.

But since I've finished it, I find myself going back to it in my mind. Wondering how I didn't see who the Choker was until the final piece of evidence. Thinking about the Choker's rationale for why s/he did what s/he did, wondering why I didn't see the pattern before it was spelled out in the book.

Evidently I liked it more than I thought I did.