From Publishers Weekly
One part traditional English whodunit and one part shadowy corporate thriller, Diamond Dagger winner Hill's 21st Dalziel/Pascoe mystery (after 2003's Death's Jest-Book) weaves a complex and deeply satisfying tale. Pal Mciver is found dead, an apparent suicide, in a locked room of the old family house in Yorkshire. The circumstances mimic the suicide of his father, a former Ashur-Mac corporation executive, 10 years before. A book of Emily Dickinson poems found at the scene may hold clues to both deaths. Called in to investigate, detectives Peter Pascoe and Andy Dalziel find themselves entering an ever-widening and ever more intricate web of relationships. The particulars of some of these relationships hint at murder rather than suicide. Kay Kafka, Pal Mciver's stepmother, is particularly well drawn, a mixture of sadness, salaciousness, possible malice and cool intelligence. As the novel nimbly moves from character to character, it also calls into question the motives of Ashur-Mac, whose arms dealings ring a note of present-day relevance. Throughout, Pascoe and Dalziel are their usual witty, intelligent selves; they continue to be two of the more interesting police detectives in modern crime fiction. The descriptions of Dalziel are particularly fine: "like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, Dalziel provided a new and unignorable focus of attention." Hill has provided readers with a superior example of the mystery form—one with a deliciously cold sting in the final pages. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
British writer and Dagger award-winning author Reginald Hill isn’t just verbose; he’s prolific as well. That the 21st installment of his Dalziel-Pascoe series (after 2003’s Death’s Jest-Book) turns its attention to America and international arms conspiracies strikes some critics as evidence that Hill’s mid-Yorkshire has been tapped out of story ideas. Worse yet, The Scotsman believes Dalziel has devolved from a character to a caricature. On the western side of the Atlantic, the critics welcome Hill’s intricate plots, large vocabulary and wit, and intelligent approach to the mystery genre. Hill "keeps the reader mesmerized," noted the Providence Journal. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From Booklist
Here is the twenty-first entry in Hill's award-winning series starring two Yorkshire detectives. Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe (Dalziel being the irascible Detective Superintendent, with Detective Sergeant Pascoe working under him but mostly around him) are worth watching for the comic tensions in their relationship. This time out, the team investigates a locked-room suicide (Hill's descriptions of the elaborate preparations the suicide takes are especially chilling). The case seems as closed as the room in which the local businessman's body was found until Hill and Pascoe discover that this suicide was committed 10 years to the day after the victim's father committed suicide in the same way and that the new suicide has left a very damning cassette tape. A cut-and-dried case morphs into a cold-case scenario in this wickedly clever, classic Brit-mystery puzzle, loaded with Yorkshire atmosphere and mordant wit. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Kirkus Reviews
"A dazzler -- Hill’s best in years."


Booklist
"Wickedly clever."


San Antonio Express-News
"Hill’s writing seems to only get sharper and punchier."


Orlando Sentinel
"Fun."


Chicago Tribune
"Reginald Hill turns the genre on its ear in Good Morning, Midnight....well worth the price of admission."


Providence Journal
"Literate, nuanced, dark-souled....Hill keeps the reader mesmerized."


Charlotte Observer
"Hill’s sleuths, Dalziel and Pascoe, never fail to entertain."


Los Angeles Times
"Twisty...[a] pleasurable puzzle."


Book Description

Hailed by the New York Times as "the master of form and sorcerer of style," Reginald Hill is undoubtedly at the top of his form in this gripping story of a mysterious death that echoes one in the past.

"Somewhere distantly a church clock began to strike midnight. In the muffling fog, it sounded both familiar and threatening, like the bell on a warning buoy tolled by the ocean's rhythmic swell."

Good Morning, Midnight

Yorkshire's coppers Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe are investigating the suicide of prominent businessman Pal Maciver. It seems to be a clear-cut case: he shot himself while sitting at his desk in his locked study.

But things are not quite what they seem. When Pascoe digs deeper, he finds threads going back to another, almost identical death -- that of Maciver's father. And even more disturbing: Pascoe's boss, Detective Superintendent Dalziel, was the officer on that case.

With Dalziel checking his every move, Pascoe is forced to lead his own investigation, plunging into the past to uncover truths about the Maciver family, particularly Pal's relationship with his step-mother, the beautiful and enigmatic Kay Kafka. He soon realizes that the implications of Maciver's death stretch far beyond the borders of Yorkshire. And when a key witness -- exotic hooker Dolores, "Lady of Pain" -- disappears, the death takes on a far more complicated and mysterious face.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
On the surface, it was an open-and-shut case of suicide. Pal Maciver locked himself in the study, put on a recording of Schumann, opened a book of Emily Dickinson's poems, put a shotgun in his mouth, and blew off the top of his head -- just as his father had done ten years before. But as Yorkshire policemen Peter Pascoe investigates, he keeps finding puzzling anomalies.

Ten years ago, Pascoe's superior -- the hard-nosed, unforgiving, and driven Andy Dalziel -- had investigated the death of Pal's father. But, when Peter discovers an unexpected connection between Andy and Pal's stepmother, he has to wonder about the thoroughness of that investigation. As he looks for clues and examines the dark and unpleasant ties that bind the surviving members of the Maciver family, he discovers that Pal's death was intended to send a message. And that raises several new questions. What is the message? Who sent it? For whom was it intended?

As the elegant solution to this multifaceted tale unfolds, award-winning British mystery writer Reginald Hill raises deeper issues. For at the heart of the mystery is a series of emotional attachments that defy the laws of logic and common sense -- relationships ranging from platonic friendship and marriage to an unexpected affair. Sue Stone

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Reginald Hill brings us a brilliant new Dalziel and Pascoe novel, featuring a chilling Mid-Yorkshire mystery.

Like father like son...

But heredity seems to have gone a gene too far when Pal Maciver's suicide in a locked room exactly mirrors that of his father ten years earlier.

In each case accusing fingers point towards Pal's stepmother, the beautiful enigmatic Kay Kafka. But she turns out to have a formidable champion, Mid-Yorkshire's own super-heavyweight, Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.

DCI Peter Pascoe, nominally in charge of the investigation, finds he is constantly body-checked by his superior as he tries to disentangle the complex relationships of the Maciver family.

At first these inquiries seem local and domestic. What really happened between Pal and his stepmother? And how has key witness and exotic hooker Dolores, Our Lady of Pain, contrived to disappear from the face of Mid-Yorkshire?

Gradually, however, it becomes clear that the fall-out from Pal's suicide spreads far beyond Yorkshire. To London, to America. Even to Iraq. But the emotional epicentre is firmly placed in mid-Yorkshire where Pascoe comes to learn that for some people the heart too is a locked room, and in there it is always midnight.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

One part traditional English whodunit and one part shadowy corporate thriller, Diamond Dagger winner Hill's 21st Dalziel/Pascoe mystery (after 2003's Death's Jest-Book) weaves a complex and deeply satisfying tale. Pal Mciver is found dead, an apparent suicide, in a locked room of the old family house in Yorkshire. The circumstances mimic the suicide of his father, a former Ashur-Mac corporation executive, 10 years before. A book of Emily Dickinson poems found at the scene may hold clues to both deaths. Called in to investigate, detectives Peter Pascoe and Andy Dalziel find themselves entering an ever-widening and ever more intricate web of relationships. The particulars of some of these relationships hint at murder rather than suicide. Kay Kafka, Pal Mciver's stepmother, is particularly well drawn, a mixture of sadness, salaciousness, possible malice and cool intelligence. As the novel nimbly moves from character to character, it also calls into question the motives of Ashur-Mac, whose arms dealings ring a note of present-day relevance. Throughout, Pascoe and Dalziel are their usual witty, intelligent selves; they continue to be two of the more interesting police detectives in modern crime fiction. The descriptions of Dalziel are particularly fine: "like a shark dumped in a swimming pool, Dalziel provided a new and unignorable focus of attention." Hill has provided readers with a superior example of the mystery form-one with a deliciously cold sting in the final pages. Agent, Caradoc King at A.P. Watt. (Oct. 3) Forecast: A blurb from Ian Rankin will alert his readers. Hill should also benefit from the rising popularity of Peter Robinson's Yorkshire mysteries in the U.S. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The personal becomes geopolitical in Hill's latest Dalziel-Pascoe case, centering on what seems to be a straightforward suicide. Except that Pal Maciver Jr. blows his head off in the exact manner and ten years to the day after his father killed himself. And the old case was investigated by Yorkshire Detective Supervisor Andy Dalziel, who appears somehow smitten with the senior Pal's beautiful widow, Kay, now remarried. All of which puts Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe in an awkward position, as he probes sexual shenanigans, rifts in the Maciver clan, questions about Ashur-Proffitt-Maciver (the American-based firm that bought out Maciver's company and booted Pal Sr. aside, now headed in Britain by Kay's husband, Tony Kafka) and his boss Dalziel's relationship to the beautiful woman who seems to be in the middle of it all. Hill is in splendid form here, his plot masterful, his scenario up-to-the-minute regarding world events, and his writing suspenseful, stylish, literary (it's laced with Emily Dickinson's poetry), and even philosophical. Topnotch crime fiction from a master. Hill lives in Cumbria, England. [See Mystery Prepub, LJ 6/1/04.] Michele Leber, Arlington, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews