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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780061451935
ISBN number: 0061451932
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 528
Printing Date: November 01, 2008
Publishing house: Harper
Release Date: November 04, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 1012
Studio: Harper
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After a close encounter with a bomb, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel recuperates at the Avalon Clinic in the quaint seaside resort of Sandytown. But soon he begins to suspect that those outside the convalescent home have just as many problems as the residents.
There's a psychiatrist with more to hide than his patients, a pair of powerful landowners with very different plans for putting the resort on the map, a Chinese acupuncturist with a Yorkshire accent, a skinny-dipping baronet and his ice-box sister, and a man from Dalziel's past who ought to be dead.
When someone actually does turn up dead, and under the most macabre circumstances, Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe is called onto the scene. Together again, Dalziel and Pascoe investigate a baffling and complex case as further corpses make it increasingly hard for Sandytown to justify its claim to be 'Home of the Healthy Holiday.' But it's certainly been put on the map. . . .
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Rated by buyers 
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I read this terrific Dalziel/Pascoe mystery a few months ago under its original British title (see above), and it is one of my favorite books in the long-running series. Reginald Hill's mysteries are consistently witty and intelligent, but in this one he introduces a new style of storytelling for his rotund Inspector Dalziel and the charming young woman who comes to his aid--emails and tape recordings. The first-person recordings are interspersed with regular third-person narrative to give us a fascinating, multimedia tale of murder and mayhem in a seaside health clinic.
If you're familiar with Andy Dalziel, you can just imagine his mood when he is sent to the hospital in Sandytown ("Home of the Healthy Holiday!") to recuperate from the injuries he received in his last adventure. He's so bored and frustrated that he actually welcomes the murder of a prominent local woman as a chance to bust out of his enforced confinement. The mystery is excellent, and the suspects are a colorful group of oddballs. But my favorite part of this book is Andy's relationship with Charlie, the clever girl who helps him solve the case. THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT is sheer pleasure, start to finish. Highly Recommended.
Rated by buyers -
THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT is the 23rd installment in Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe mystery series and immediately follows up his previous entry, DEATH COMES FOR THE FAT MAN. The "fat man" of the title is Police Superintendent Andy Dalziel, who spent that entire novel in a coma as the result of a terrorist bombing attack that seriously injured him.
The current book begins with Dalziel convalescing at a spa in a small British seaside resort town known as Sandytown. His physical wounds have mostly healed, but concern still remains for the mental anguish he has experienced. While feeling like himself, he is still somewhat forgetful and even shows up at a Sandytown pub garbed in his bathrobe and wearing only one slipper. He is given a personal recorder --- that he cleverly names Mildred --- by the head of the Avalon Spa where he is recovering. The intention of the recorder is to allow Dalziel to freely capture all his thoughts in an effort to break through his short-term memory damage.
The style of THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT is quite unique. The very first 162 pages are written in either email form or as transcripts from Dalziel's recordings on Mildred. The emails are from another character, Charlotte "Charley" Heywood, sent to her sister on a mission in Africa. From these sources, we are given a view of the events happening at both the Avalon Spa and the small village of Sandytown and, as a result, receive first-hand introductions to the many characters involved as they interact with either Dalziel or Heywood.
The story jumps to straight narrative in between the email/transcript passages. The cause of this shift in style is that a murder has occurred at a barbecue celebration. The victim is the local town matron and resident rich person Lady Denham, who has made her millions as a result of her late husband's pig farm and ham industry. The irony is that her body is found shoved inside a pig roasting basket over the barbecue that everyone was eating from. Because she was in the process of reworking her last will and testament, there are several characters with good reason to want her dead --- either out of bitterness or to expedite the will payout to the beneficiaries.
Called to lead the murder investigation is Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe and his team of investigators. Pascoe reports directly to Dalziel and now must deal with him as a potential witness. Additionally, Dalziel's old habits kick in and he begins to "assist" in the investigation as well. Several witnesses give stories that don't exactly match, and the investigators seem to be running around in circles with no direct evidence of who was responsible for the murder of Lady Denham. To make things that much more interesting, a mysterious character from Dalziel and Pascoe's past, Franny Roote, is also a resident of the Avalon Spa as he is permanently paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair bound. What makes his presence so alarming is that both Dalziel and Pascoe thought he was dead.
The murder spree continues as another body is found in addition to one of the many suspects being thrown from a cliff and left in critical condition. Pascoe and his team are at a total loss and now under the gun to find the murder(s) before more victims pile up. One of the characters likens the events that are transpiring to Agatha Christie's novel/play, THE HOLLOW --- whereby the character you dismiss from the frame because they've been caught apparently in flagrante can turn out to be the perpetrator after all. Without giving anything away, the reader will be challenged to figure out who is to blame here.
Hill's writing style always brings a refreshing new view to a genre filled with authors who continually publish fine mystery series themselves. However, there are not many who match Hill's ability to capture the interpersonal play between criminal and investigator as he has done regularly with the Dalziel and Pascoe series. At one point in the novel a character comes to the realization that death is the cure for all diseases. Funny enough, that plays into the U.K. title when it was released there earlier this year. THE PRICE OF BUTCHER'S MEAT comes from a quote within Jane Austen's SANDITON. Fans of classic British literature will enjoy this allusion, and lovers of a good mystery will be totally engaged by Hill's latest effort.
--- Reviewed by Ray Palen
Rated by buyers 
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Reginald Hill is one of the few writers whose books I always pre-order and wait for with great anticipation. But this one is disappointing. Its narrative relies on e-mails that are unbelievably long and electronic recordings that are uncharacteristically honest. Peter and Wieldy make appearances that are little more than tokens, and so there are almost none of those wonderful conversations among the three crime solvers.
And I hate Franny Roote. I have always hated Franny Roote. And he plays much too large a part in this novel. There are some new examples of Hill's great ability at creating delightful characters. The Parker family is a wonderful addition to his cast, especially Minnie, a precocious, observant nine-year old who, Dalziel says, will make a great cop. The most important character in the novel is a newcomer, Charlotte Heywood. who could well become the basis for a new Hill series.
Rated by buyers 
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The Price of Butcher's Meat is a very very good Hill tale. If you were fortunate enough to pick up A Cure for All Diseases in England a few months ago please know that it is the same story under a different USA title.
Rated by buyers -
Needing to recover from "the big bang in Mill Street" that nearly killed him (see DEATH COMES FOR THE FAT MAN) and no one able or willing to take him in, Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel heeds the advice of Ellie Pascoe, wife of the Chief Inspector. He obtains a room at the Avalon in Sandytown by the sea, "the Home of the Healthy Holiday".
As he records his feelings per his therapist, Dalziel quickly realizes three families own the small resort town under the auspices of the Sandytown Development Consortium. The Parkers, Denhams and Hollises have ambitious plans for Sandytown until Lady Denham dies mysteriously. Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe leads the investigation in which Dalziel wants in if nothing else at least as a consultant; on the other hand Pascoe desperately wants to keep his sick leave pal "Fat Andy" out so he can lead the show.
This is a refreshing excellent follow-up to DEATH COMES FOR THE FAT MAN. The structure is a radical departure from the long running Dalziel-Pascoe police procedurals as it is told in six interrelated but unique volumes that make the tale more than a whodunit; the story line is a deep character study allowing insight into Dalziel via his taped observations and email sent by local Charlie Whiffle. With a nod to "Janeites" and homage to Jane Austen and her unfinished novel, Reginald Hill provides a great tale.
Harriet Klausner
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