Reginald Hill Books In Order

Publication Order of Dalziel & Pascoe Books

Publication Order of Dalziel & Pascoe Collections

Publication Order of Joe Sixsmith Books

Publication Order of Captain Fantom Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Reginald Hill hails from England; he was born in Hartlepool in 1936 to what he often described as ordinary parents. Growing up in Cumbria, Hill began reading at an early age, citing his mother as the source of his great love for books.

A fan of crime writers of the so called golden age, it was as the young boy was fetching her mother’s library books that he encountered and quickly became enamored with the crime genre.

His years in Carlisle Grammar school instilled within Hill a rudimentary mastery over English, the one subject he excelled at impressively. He would later graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford, branching out into teaching both at secondary and college levels.

His teaching career lasted several years, leading him towards the position of Doncaster College’s Senior lecturer, before he made the decision to retire with the aim of devoting his life to writing full time.

Literary Career

Reginald Hill took up full time writing in 1980, upon making the decision to give up salaried work. Throughout his illustrious career the famous author penned many a novel under pseudonyms, these including Charles Underhill for his tales of historical adventure, Dick Morland for his Science fictions stories and Patrick Ruel for the author’s works of mystery and adventure.

Central to the success of his books has been Reginald Hill’s rich collection of intriguing characters many of whom are responsible for driving the success of a vast majority of the author’s works.

Chief amongst his collection are Edgar Wield and Andrew Dalziel, Yorkshire detectives that littered an odd 20 or more novels; with the black machine operator Joe Sixmith partaking in stories throughout another 30 or so novels.

Reginald Hill’s approach to writing always employed numerous structural devices to bring his stories to life, be it presenting plot elements in a non-chronological order or approaching stories from the perspectives of characters close to his primary protagonists, sometimes creating confusion, many times accentuating the mystery of each literary work.

Reginald Hill was well known for structuring his novels around art pieces or the works of other legendary writers, showing devotion for classic crime novelists that was fostered from an early age, growing with Reginald Hill’s own maturation.

Reginald Hill Perished in January 2012 after a few years suffering from a brain tumor.

Awards

Reginald Hill’s successful career as a writer has attracted much deserved praise towards the author’s many works, some notable awards including the Golden Dagger Award (for works featuring the detectives Dalziel and Pascoe), the Cartier Diamond Dagger award (the nation’s most prestigious award, gifted for lifetime achievements),The Barry Award and The Macavity Award to mention but a few.

Producing numerous short stories during his long career, Reginald Hill’s novels about detectives Dalziel and Pasco were adapted into a TV series (Dalziel and Pascoe) by the BBC.

Since his first works (A clubbable Woman) in 1970, throughout the decades and the many novels and short stories and tales that followed, all the way to his final work (The WoodCutter) in 2010, Reginald Hill has cemented his place as a true hero among crime novelists.

A Clubbable Woman

A clubbable woman was published in 1970, one of Reginald Hill’s earliest works; within its pages we are introduced to the electrifying Detective Andrew Dalziel and the polar opposite of his being, Sergeant Peter Pascoe. Also present is Connon, a typical male, driven by his passion for rugby, who returns home after a particularly difficult day to find trouble.

When a nasty knock during the match leaves him much too tired to deal with the complexities of his home life, this including his uncommunicative wife, he loses himself to sleep, awakening not long after to find her dead.

The result is a clash of wits; Detective Superintendent Dalziel is driven by an objective determination to sniff the killer out using his mental skills and intricate knowledge of the team and its members.

Pascoe is less objective and finds that his loyalties to a different code drive him into a corner far different from Dalziel.

The earliest of Hill’s published books, this introduction to Dalziel and Pascoe reads like few other Hill novels; most fans have been known to note the difference in the narrative voice and a variation in the approach to Pascoe, especially his lengthy internal monologues.

The novel’s primary failing has often been said to lay with its deep connection with the sport of rugby; intimately intertwined with the rugby club at the heart of the crime, even the passable twists and turns get lost in the numerous discussions about the sport and its various metaphors, this proving a bit of an irritation to those that do not have the slightest inkling about the sport.

Ruling Passion

Published in 1973, Ruling Passion is one of the earliest works in the Dalziel and Pascoe story. The novel delves deeper into Pascoe’s psyche than the first two books.

Within its pages, Reginald Hill once more introduces Detective Sergeant Pascoe; on a fine morning, Pascoe’s decision to drive down to the village of Thornton Lacey from Yorkshire will leave the detective scarred for life.

Taking the drive to meet old friends, the triple murder that greets the Detective Sergeant portends a dark secret; with the crime outside his jurisdiction, Pascoe finds himself stranded, summoned back to Yorkshire by his boss, yet unwilling to believe the involvement of one of his oldest friends in the grisly murder and twice as determined to uncover the true motives hidden behind the crime,

It has been said by many fans that the Dalziel and Pascoe story doesn’t truly begin until Ruling passion, the third outing in the series; while certainly falling far below the quality of later novels, this particular story has always enjoyed a fair amount of praise from many Reginald Hill fans. Not only does the novel successfully display the passage of time between books but it also makes a solid attempt at building upon the relationships introduced in the first two books even while balancing a great many elements of the new story.

Complaints have been raised, however, about the awkward connections and coincidences that the story relies upon to progress the plot, many of which come off as very forced.