A Cure for All Diseases

Reginald Hill is a restlessly ambitious and inventive writer, always experimenting with the format of the crime novel in attempts to come up with something new. The fact he's still doing it after so many great books, and after so many years in the business is both laudable and astonishing. Here, he takes the traditional whodunit and plays tricks with the structure. But, I'm afraid the whole thing is a) far too long and occasionally tedious; b) painful to read at times - as other reviewers have already noted.

The book is told from the viewpoints of several characters, with intermittent passages of third person narration. So you get to know the thought processes of Andy Dalziel, Peter Pascoe and Charlotte (Charley) Heywood, a young psychology graduate whose e-mails to her sister form a significant part of the narrative and are both frustrating and annoying to read. Also throw in, briefly, Francis Roote, who has managed to shoehorn his way into the lives of Dalziel and Pascoe once again, and you have a large number of `voices' in this book.

Without going into plot details, the whole solution/s are not altogether satisfying. Part of the book is also apparently some kind of homage to Jane Austen's unfinished novel 'Sanditon'. Not having read this, I can't comment, but maybe Mr. Hill has tried to be just a little bit too clever in `A Cure for all Diseases'.

So what are its good points? Well, for a start, the characterization is, as usual, superb. Fat Andy is, as always, Fat Andy: boisterous, oafish, sharp as a tack. Francis Roote is also a great original creation and the remainder of the big cast of characters are all skillfully drawn and clearly defined. The quality of prose is also well up to standard, and even though Charley Heywood's writings are irksome, Reg has managed to capture the chatty voice of a young, intelligent woman very well. You can admire it, without necessarily enjoying it (or even being able to tolerate it).

Throw in Hill's trademark sly humour and the interplay between the characters and you find yourself rooting for it to all end in a blaze of glory, to reward your perseverance in getting to the end. But as previously noted, I don't believe it does. Overall there's just too much of eveything going on in here and I can see a lot of readers abandoning this partway through, never to finish it.

Last year's Dalziel and Pascoe - the fabulous 'The Death of Dalziel' -was, for my money, the best British crime novel of the year. This follow-up which finds Andy Dalziel convalescing after surviving the bomb blast in that book, is not in the same league.

As a big fan of Reg Hill, I'll give this three stars, but if you're a newbie, you'll probably believe it's worth no more than two at best. There's a great, much smaller book in here somewhere, but at 535 pages long, unless you've read Reg Hill before and love his stuff, you're going to find your patience sorely tested.

Never mind, Reg is allowed to be disappointing every now and again; let's hope his new Joe Sixsmith novel - also due out this year - is better than this.

Dazed and Confused (1/4 people found this helpful)

I agree with the others it was a huge shock and it became a real discipline to understand the breakdown of Hills eloquence as you progressed through the story. I did manage to make it to the end of the book and there was actually a reasonable short story in there as long as you ignored the email passages. avoid this book and look forward to the next one.

What on earth was Mr Hill thinking? (2/3 people found this helpful)

I too am a long time fan of Mr Hill's books and his prose is usually beautifully crafted, but this book is dreadfully written. I have to agree with the earlier reviewer, especially about the chapters written as "e-mails". They are unreadable. I lost track of the number of times I had to back track on a sentence because I had read "shed" as one of those wooden things at the bottom of the garden instead of "she'd". Very disappointing.

terrible format for a novel - unreadable! (3/6 people found this helpful)

I can't believe I am writing such a hugely negative review about a D & P novel - i have read every single one and would give most of them at least 4 stars. In fact, I tried to give this review no stars but the form field would not allow it! What is Mr Hill playing at in the format of this book? the first two chapters are in the form of an email - and that includes virtually no punctuation - including apostrophes; shortened words, stuccato "sentences". in fact, he has written it more in the form of a very very long text message. I struggled to understand the most basic "sentences". consequently, there is no sign of a plot and the actual physicality of simply READING it and making any sense of it, is tiresome in the extreme. These type of chapters are interspersed with the diary-like musings of Andy from his hospital bed, only, worse still - he dictates them, so again, it isn't even a straightforward "written" diary but in truncated form. Is this supposed to be a modern, high tech kind of device in the novel? if so, Mr Hill, you can keep it, i'll go back to the "old fashioned" written word. i gave up after three chapters, frankly, by then, i was craving something with ordinary words, punctuation annd sentences that actually had the narrative of a plot and some interesting descriptive prose. Terrible!

Reginald Hill

Reader Reviews:

Big disappointment, but I can't bring myself to give it just 2 stars!! (2/2 people found this helpful)

Dazed and Confused (1/4 people found this helpful)

What on earth was Mr Hill thinking? (2/3 people found this helpful)

terrible format for a novel - unreadable! (3/6 people found this helpful)

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