Andy Dalziel knows how to cope with crime. Give him a nice straightforward murder, some bloke with a gun and a grievance, and he’s a happy man. But this new one, that the press is calling the “Yorkshire Choker”…well, Andy could suggest some different names, none of them fit for a family paper. It’s not just that he keeps phoning the cops to boast about the girls he’s strangled. No, this one apparently thinks he’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. And just to tie everything up in a big pink bow, the sergeant has called in a “clairvoyant,” as though Andy needs some nutjob with a crystal ball to help him crack the case.

“Sophisticated” – New York Times
“Reginald Hill’s stories must certainly be among the best now being written” – Times LIterary Supplement

From Yorkshire to Thornton Lacey is only a morning’s drive, but for Peter Pascoe it’s a journey into the past, a chance to kick back, Big Chill-style, with his closest friends from college. On arrival, though, he finds not a warm welcome but a grisly triple-murder, with one of his oldest mates on tap as the chief suspect.

Still something of a newbie on the police force, Pascoe is a bit out of his depth and he is most certainly out of his jurisdiction, but the local cops aren’t much interested in Pascoe’s windy hunches about his friends’ complex relationships; the way they see it, they’ve got their man.

It’s all a misery for Pascoe until the (reluctant) Dalziel and the (increasingly important) Ellie turn up to add their two pence – and, just as critically, to make it clear that this trio will be well worth watching.

“An English murder mystery of the finest quality” – The New Yorker

“This is not just another traditional British mystery. The writing is sophisticated, the characters are well drawn, and the plot is beautifully constructed” – New York Times

“These novels last like a grand malt whisky…here is an author at his formidable best” – Mail on Sunday (UK)

The second book in the Dalziel and Pascoe mystery novel series sends the two mismatched Yorkshire police detectives among university students—a group for which Andy Dalziel has no great love. In fact, when he hears a dead body has been found on the grounds of Holm Coultram College, he thinks of it as rather a good start.

This is 1971, and the police force does not enjoy the warmest of relations with the Ivory Tower. Nevertheless, Dalziel takes himself to college, where the single murder is followed by another corpse and then another, until even Dalziel is forced to admit that someone is going after the academic community with rather excessive zeal. As the investigation grows more complelx, help arrives from some unexpected corners, Dalziel’s callow young sergeant proves surprisingly insightful, and everyone involved gets some useful education.

“Splendidly illuminating and crammed with goodies…each new Hill promises delight” —Times of London

We bring back the (long out-of-print) first novel in the phenomenally popular Dalziel & Pascoe mystery novel series about a pair of mismatched Yorkshire cops.

Our addition includes a new introduction by Reginald Hill written especially for the Felony & Mayhem edition.

Reginald Hill published A Clubbable Woman – his first novel, and the first to feature Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe, quirky detectives of the Yorkshire police force – in 1970. Since then, the series has grown to an astonishing 24 titles, has won numerous prizes in mystery fiction, and has sold millions of copies around the world.

The popular “Dalziel and Pascoe” TV series, broadcast in both the U.S. and the UK, only added to the fan base, but the early books in the series have been unavailable for years, until now. This edition of A Clubbable Woman – with a new introduction to the series by Reginald Hill – will allow the series’ thousands of fans to see how it all began…

Mary Connon was a small-town femme fatale, eager to test her allure on any man between 6 and 60. When she’s found dead in her own living room, her husband – the one bloke to whom she never blew a kiss – comes instantly under suspicion. But Andy Dalziel, the gloriously vulgar savant of the Mid-Yorkshire police force, has some other ideas, and all of them center on the local rugby club – the town’s social center, and Mary Connon’s preferred hunting ground.

Peter Pascoe, Dalziel’s young detective sergeant, suspects that his new boss’s interest in the club has at least as much to do with access to good beer as it does with solving the murder. But while Dalziel never said no to a pint or three, Pascoe has much to learn about Fat Andy’s uniquely effective methodology for solving crimes.

“What makes Hill’s series different is its literacy and suave style, its real humor and often, even wit. Reginald Hill creates real characters, and he has raised the classical British mystery to new heights”

- New York Times

“In Dalziel and Pascoe, Hill has created the most remarkable duo in the annals of crime fiction”

- Toronto Star

“The uncouth Dalziel and the suave Pascoe, the Odd Couple of the Yorkshire CID, are as engaging a pair of policemen as you’ll find in the gumshoe gallery, and their creator is, without doubt, a master entertainer”

- San Diego Union

But staying there isn’t an option; her husband apparently died broke, and Trudi’s best hope lies in suing the company responsible for his death. And that means asking what her husband was doing on a remote stretch of Yorkshire road. Even the painful knowledge that a woman was involved only leads to larger, more baffling questions. Who was Eric Blair, and why did Trent Adamson have his credit cards? Why had Trent suddenly quit his job? The mysteries mount as the novel unfolds.

By the time Trudi’s done unraveling the truth, her cozy refuge will be in ruins, but the quivering dormouse, too, will be history.

“Splendidly intricate and involving, done with panache and wit”– Times of London

A great choice for fans of Ruth Rendell and Hill’s The Spy’s Wife

The multi-award winning Reginald Hill dives into the world of international conspiracy with a tale of a discontented cop and a renegade group of Freemasons whose reach extends to the White House and the English throne.

“The characters are a treat and the storytelling is delivered with charm and irony”

- Kirkus

Her husband, it appears, has spent nearly a decade using her for his own purposes, and now the British intelligence service want to use her for theirs. It would be so easy to give in, to back away from the conspiracies and intrigues that suddenly loom in front of her. But the shock of Sam’s betrayal has woken Molly out of her long, complacent dream, and she is no longer prepared to be anybody’s pawn.

“An extraordinary heroine” — Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Quite out of the ordinary, enormously skillful, and absolutely alive”—Library Journal

“…one of the finest British mystery writers at work today” —Publishers Weekly

Perfect for fans of Minette Walters and Elizabeth Ironside

“Hill remains one of the finest mystery writers of our era” – Booklist

“A perfect mixture of tension and mordant humor that should satisfy the most demanding reader” – Publishers Weekly