A Pinch of Snuff (Dalziel and Pascoe)

Reginald Hill has a moral view, even though he delivers his characters without much comment: make up your own mind, Dalziel and Pascoe will tell you. That moral view is on plain display in this tale of the ways people become truly bent. It ruins their lives: the upstanding dentist whose flash of insight drives him to report a possible murder (or is he driven by his belief that in this way he can hide his own perversions?); the working man whose absorption with his avocation thrusts his wife into his neighbor's arms (or was she on the prowl, anyway?); the avenging feminist who serves up justice (or not?). Every character is on the knife's edge; some are sliced clean through in this essentially dark story. But, in true Hill fashion, there's still a line or two to make you laugh right out loud. If you haven't read anything in this series, I recommend you start with almost any previous story to give yourself a kinder (though not really less nuanced) introduction to the protagonists. But if you can't start elsewhere, begin here. It's light reading, only a mystery -- or not.

The Dalziel and Pascoe series is humming along nicely by the time you get to this, the fifth book in the series. This particular book delves into the shady world of porn films and touches on the even more macabre genre of "snuff" films. As can be expected from this plot iine, the characters that these two coppers come across are shady indeed. Dalziel almost seems at home in this scenario, but Peter Pascoe's put into some dicey situations that put into question all his ideals and morals. And Dalziel uses Pascoe's innocence to help ferret out some of the dicier details. This is an excellent book, and another strong entry in this long-running series. Hill is a very clever writer and his plots are even cleverer still.

In the fifth book of the series, Dalziel and Pascoe have been working together long enough to have formed a good partnership. So Peter Pascoe is surprised when Dalziel dismisses a lead Pascoe is given on a porn film that may be more than it seems. Pascoe's dentist is convinced that one scene in the current offering at the local private film club was not achieved by special effects, but showed a genuine beating--one severe enough that the actress might well have died as a result. Pascoe pursues the matter in spite of Dalziel's disinterest, and won't drop it even when the dentist is accused of molesting an underage patient. When the elderly owner of the film club is found beaten to death, Pascoe suspects a link with his investigation of the possible snuff film. As he digs deeper it becomes clear that there's something very nasty going on. But there are a good many threads to untangle before he uncovers the full story. As usual with this series, this book is a well-crafted police procedure with stylish writing and a good deal of humour, though Hill never trivializes the crimes he describes. The book is self-contained and can be read without having first read any of the previous books. There's some development of the long term story of the main characters, with the introduction of Sergeant Wield, and a look at the early months of Peter and Ellie's marriage. Ideally the series should be read in order, but this entertaining and thoughtful book makes a good startng point if the earlier books aren't available.

Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe's dentist, who is used to seeing broken jaws and broken teeth, tells Pascoe that a scene in an X-rated film where a women is beaten is real, not staged. This leads Peter and his wife Ellie to check out the Calliope Kinema Club, a trendy venue for soft-core porn in an otherwise proper and well-to-do neighborhood.Sergeant Wield already has the place under surveillance, due to neighborhood complaints and scandalized locals, but Wield and Pascoe's Boss Superintendant Dalziel is skeptical that anyone is guilty of anything more than voyeurism until an indisputable murder turns up the heat.The books are labeled the Dalziel and Pascoe books, but I always think of them as the Peter Pascoe / Ellie Pascoe / Edgar Wield / Andy Dalziel books, and all four characters get to shine in this one. Not as innovative as most of the later books in the series, but still an excellent police procedural, and well as showing much of the sly humor and characterization that makes Hill's books such a delight.

My copy of A Pinch of Snuff is a 21st printing; this book must be really popular. Reginald Hill's long-running Dalziel/Pasco series never fails to deliver a fine story. Detective Inspector Dalziel allows Detective Sergeant Peter Pasco to look into a report that the beating of an actress in a porn film appears to have been the real thing. Another case's investigation begins to overlap this one, and through step-by-step detective work, the story unfolds.I enjoyed the story; it's hard to find a better British police procedural than those of Reginald Hill. I don't normally like or read British police procedurals, but Hill's in a class by himself. Read this one and whatever you do, don't miss his later books in this series. On Beulah Height, for instance, is a true masterpiece.