January 13, 2012
Reginald Hill
It’s with real sadness that I learned this afternoon of the death of Reginald Hill, author of the splendid “Dalziel and Pascoe” series about a pair of magnificently mismatched Yorkshire cops, of some of my all-time favorite espionage titles (Who Guards a Prince was on the very first list of titles published by Felony & Mayhem), and of an astonishing 47 novels overall, plus several short-story collections.
I met Reg Hill only once, and remember him as a very tall, very sloshed, and very charming man, with a wickedly glinting eye. There was something of the roguish Southern gentleman about him, though he was deeply English. Much more important than that brief meeting, though, was my relationship with his books, which has been both long and heartfelt. In a genre that is all too often correctly criticized for specializing in cardboard characters, Hill created some of the most nuanced and individual (and funniest) characters ever to bestride a page, Fat Andy Dalziel being, of course, first among them. Would I want Andy in my life? Probably not. He’d hurt my feelings, he’d insult my friends, he’d embarrass me in public. But he’d have my back so solidly that it would be like leaning against a stone wall, and that’s worth a lot. And once in a while he would make me absolutely bark with laughter. And I can’t think of many writers, certainly not many mystery writers, who have created a character of such glorious and realistic complexity.