A Clubbable Woman (Abridged‪)‬

Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel investigates a murder close to home in this first crime novel featuring the much-loved detective team of Dalziel and Pascoe.

‘So far out in front that he need not bother looking over his shoulder’ Sunday Telegraph

Home from the rugby club after taking a nasty knock in a match, Sam Connon finds his wife more uncommunicative than usual. After passing out on his bed for a few hours, he comes downstairs to discover communication has been cut off forever – by a hole in the middle of her forehead.

Andy Dalziel, a long-standing member of the club, wants to run the murder investigation along his own lines. But DS Peter Pascoe’s loyalties lie elsewhere and he has quite different ideas about how the case should proceed…

Reviews

'He is probably the best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world.' The Independent

'He just keeps getting better and better … Hill, a true master, never fails to shock and surprise.' Ian Rankin

'The finest male English contemporary crime writer. Compassionate, intelligent and entertaining' Val McDermid

'One of Britain's most consistently excellent crime novelists.' The Times

'An increasingly lyrical and always humorous writer, he is first and foremost an instinctive and complete novelist who is blessed with a spontaneous storytelling gift.' The Mail on Sunday

‘Hill is among the most consistently excellent and invigorating detective novelists’ TLS

'Few writers in the genre today have Hill's gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace' Sunday Times

About the author

Reginald Hill was a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his outstanding crime novels featuring Dalziel and Pascoe, 'the best detective duo on the scene bar none' (Daily Telegraph). His writing career began with the publication of A Clubbable Woman (1970), which introduced Chief Superintendent Andy Dalziel and DS Peter Pascoe. Reginald Hill won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers' Assocation Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to the genre.