Review: Midnight Fugue

Midnight Fugue
by Reginald Hill


I was going to save this book for when I really needed a relaxing escapist read, but I couldn't seem to get into any of the rest of the TBR pile so gave in to temptation and escaped into the crime ridden world of mid yorkshire. This is the latest offering from the wonderful Reginald Hill and the latest in the Dalziel and Pascoe series. Several years ago I picked up a D & P novel as part of a holiday reading selection and I have been buying Hill's work ever since. The standard crime novel relies on strong plotting to hold the readers attention and drive the story and Hill has a masterful grasp of plot. Character too is crucial to the successful crime novel and this Hill delivers in buckets. Hill brings something more; he brings a wicked sense of humour. All this he combines with a stylistic finesse that makes his work one of the great pleasures of reading.


It is hard to resist the charms of the crude, crass, threatening, Fat Andy, God like overlord of Mid Yorkshire CID, one of the great characters of contemporary crime fiction. A falstaffian figure, a modern John Bull, (emphasis on the Bull), making the eternal point that one should never judge a book by its cover. The apparently indestructible Andy Dalziel is back with a vengeance in this offering, after the previous installment saw him frightening the natives at a seaside resort in the Austenesque Cure for all Diseases while recovering from the effects of the terrorist bomb that laid him low in The Death of Dalziel, (like Twain's, a death greatly exaggerated).


Told over the time frame of a day, things start out a little disturbing for the great behemoth Dalziel when he finds himself losing track of the days and sitting in a cathedral listening to a Bach Fugue, instead of instilling terror in subordinates. But things pick up when he is presented with a mystery by an attractive blond in distress, just the thing to get the big man back on track. Meanwhile Peter Pascoe is off enjoying the seductive company of his wife at a christening and wondering, is the fat man really back in the game, or just getting in the way. And when a policewoman turns up unconscious next to a corpse, Pascoe has considerable cause for concern.

Hill creates a world in which criminals rise to respectability on the backs of corrupt and desperate people, a world where money and spin is power. A world where people act without scruple on a regular basis, the trick is keeping track of who you owe a debt of vengeance or a debt of gratitude to. The modern state of politics and journalism does not go without comment in this story, which involves rising stars of the Conservative party, and irony defines the events that lay low rising journalists and ruthless entrepreneurs. It may be a corrupt and nasty world but you have to laugh and there is always the fat man on hand to dispense justice, with the the able assistance of the rest of CID at his heels.

The wit and intelligence of Hill's writing is a part of the appeal, the game playing with words and other literary and artistic forms adds to the enjoyment of a Reginald Hill novel. The contrived structure of his writing reflects the contrived nature of a crime novel, it is an orchestrated work where society may be portrayed and commented upon but the ugliness at least is trapped within the pages and Hill acknowledges that in the way he imposes a structure that imitates other art forms, in this case a baroque fugue and on the definition of a fugue we should leave the last word to the Detective Superintendent and his new found affection for classical music:

'Tha knows what a fugue is? Bit of a tune that chases itself round and round till it vanishes up its own arsehole.' (p.352)