Since 1970, Reginald Hill has written about fifty books. Even though the Dalziel-Pascoe novels make up less than half of Hill's work, he is nonetheless best known for this series, nineteen novels so far about the crude but canny Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel and his college-educated, sophisticated protégé, Peter Pascoe, members of the Mid-Yorkshire Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Hill has also written a dozen nonseries books and four books in a second series (the Joe Sixsmith books) under his own name, seven thrillers under the name Patrick Ruell, three suspense novels as Dick Morland, and a pair of fantasy novels as Charles Underhill.

In his detective novels Hill is a classicist, adhering strictly to the structure of an initiating crime, a period of investigation and a series of carefully spaced clues, and a climactic revelation of the identity of the criminal. His novels are often referred...