The Price of Butcher's Meat: A Dalziel and Pascoe Mystery

Internationally bestselling and Diamond Dagger Award-winning
mystery writer Reginald Hill sets this mystery in the seaside resort of
Sandytown, where Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is recovering from a
bomb blast while solving a local murder in this “deeply satisfying whodunit” (Entertainment Weekly).

Having narrowly survived
injuries sustained when he was caught in a huge explosion, Detective
Superintendent Andy Dalziel is still on leave from the Yorkshire police
department, recuperating at the Avalon Clinic in the quaint seaside resort of
Sandytown. But he soon 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, 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.

From charred corpses to Jane
Austen allusions, The Price
of Butcher’s Meat is a police
procedural with something for everyone as it “offers an intellectually
satisfying mystery, deep character studies and witty social commentary clothed
in elegant, literate prose” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

“The fertility of Hill’s imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality of his literary style never cease to delight.” - Val McDermid, author of A Darker Domain

“Few writers in the genre today have Hill’s gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humor, compassion, and a prose style that blends elegance and grace.” - Donna Leon

"One of the best mysteries of the year. . . . It’s superb. . . . Treat yourself—the pages move as fast as a pint in Andy’s hands.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Reginald Hill, the most playful of genre authors, fancies himself a latter-day Jane Austen in The Price of Butcher’s Meat. . . . Hill pulls off the clever literary jest of projecting Austen’s unfinished novel Sandition into modern times. . . . [He] proves himself brilliant at recycling 19th-century characters and conventions...while gleefully adding macabre genre touches.” - New York Times Book Review

“Hill provides his usual deeply satisfying whodunit. . . . Fans of the Fat Man are in for a treat.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Great stuff from one of the greats, and a true must for fans of British crime.” - Rocky Mountain News

“Reginald Hill is one of the masters of crime fiction, and his customary wit, plotting, and sense of style are every bit as much in evidence in The Price of Butcher’s Meat as they are in the previous Dalziel and Pascoe novels.” - Peter Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of Darkness

“Reginald Hill’s novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories entwining.” - Ian Rankin

“A literary frolic, Hill has brought the epistolary novel into the 21st century with e-mails and a digital voice recorder. . .. .Final word: Great stuff from one of the greats, and a true must for fans of British crime.” - Rocky Mountain News

“[A] meaty mystery. . . . The Fat Man is back. . . . This is good news indeed. . . . . The Price of Butcher’s Meat offers an intellectually satisfying mystery, deep character studies and witty social commentary clothed in elegant, literate prose. Hill’s mastery of narrative voice creates vitality out of devices that in lesser hands could be disastrous. . . . [It all] works brilliantly.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Excellent. . . . Hill’s perfect pitch (especially for the short, pithy details of dialogue and character description) carries the story through all sorts of villains.” - Publishers Weekly

“One of England’s most innovative and erudite mystery writers. . . . When it comes to challenging the mind, a Hill novel is better than Sudoku.” - Orlando Sentinel