Reginald Hill is the creator of the Dalziel and Pascoe books and television series so he's got a good pedigree. Although I have watched several Dalziel and Pascoe programmes, this is the first of Hill's books that I have read and I can say that I wasn't disappointed. For the first ever review of mine, however, I have chosen The Stranger House to demonstrate the contrasting styles of language used by an author; and for anyone with the stamina I have provided at the end of this review three tables, with some comments, on the vocabulary and styles that Hill has used.

This book, like many good books, has two main threads running through it: Sam Flood's story and Miguel Madero's story. Never the twain shall meet? Not a bit of it: they very much meet!

Sam is a young Australian lady with fiery red hair who sets off on a mission from Cumbria in the North West of England on her way to study for a PhD in Mathematics at Cambridge. The mission is to try to find out a bit more about the life of an ancestor of hers, also Sam Flood, whom they believed had come from Cumbria: Illthwaite in Cumbria.

Miguel Maderos, Mig to his friends; and Maderos is pronounced Matheros, is a former trainee priest who is also studying, history in his case; and is keen to complete his research into a family connection dating back to the Catholic persecutions in England in the 16th century. Illthwaite is one of Mig's destinations too.

Sam and Mig arrive in Illthwaite on the same day as each other and being the tiny place that it is they end up in adjoining rooms in the same inn: the Stranger House. What follows now is long and complicated since there are many twists and turns to it but my overall impressions are as follows:

• the scene setting part of the book is good
• the early Illthwaite part of the story is good
• the development of the Illthwaite story is good
• the part with Sam and Mig separate for a day is poor
• the rest of the story is good
• the story essentially has a happy ending, for Sam and Mig; but not necessarily for everyone else!

The characters and characterisations in the book are all good and the crime/thriller aspects of the story are also well done: I kept trying the guess the direction in which several aspects of the story would develop but I didn't get any of them right!

The characters are good providing you are familiar to an extent with the kind of village that Illthwaite is meant to be: the voluptuous landlady; Thor, the tower of strength blacksmith type; Noddy the local Bobby made good; the village idiots ... they are twins and they're not quite idiots; the vicar with spirituality/strength of character problems. Then there's the squire and his family up at Illthwaite Hall: Dunstan the old squire type (who still has lead in his pencil!); Gerry his son and Frek the stunning beauty of a daughter who turns out to be a lesbian: well, so that bit's a surprise given the setting!

The squire and Frek are both Cambridge educated and Frek is a Don there.

The complications in this book are all historical since Sam has gone there to solve an historical puzzle and so has Mig. Whether they both solve their puzzles is at the centre of the book so ruin it I will not. That the pair of them consummate their relationship very early on will not come as a surprise, that they come across something that no one else has seen for five hundred years or so happened just about naturally within the context of the book.

Although Mig is an important part of the book and his story is an interesting one, if it had been left out and Mig had just been an ordinary tourist then I wouldn't particularly have missed it. Mig is a foil for Sam and she needed him one a few occasions but apart from that, well judge for yourself.

This is a medium sized book at just under 470 pages and if you like a good crime/thriller novel with good characters and a good and credible plot then this book will serve you well.

In the same way that Sam has fiery hair, the end of the main part of the story is also fiery. Again, not much being given away by telling you this and it's another example of the quality of the story in that it closes several aspects of the book all at once.

There is then a post scriptum that we could have done without since all it does, basically, is to tell us that Sam and Mig live happily ever after: not together but they meet from time to time and there's always the possibility that they are soul mates!

Hill writes well but what struck me was a contradiction: on the one hand he provides us with a well written and constructed story together with a long list of words that are either uncommon or that one might not use in every day language; and then there are the words and phrases that have absolutely no place alongside those exponents of erudition. Look at the tables that follow and make up your own mind!

Firstly, look out for the definition of a fox's breakfast early in the book: I hadn't come across that before but I'll certainly be using it from time to time!

Good Quality Words and Phrases in the Book
recusant	tummocks	presage
apostasy	intercessory	avuncular
lucubration	non marmoreal	submersible
quincunx	patina	eidetic
scutched	prepossessing	aeons
expiation	phantasm	intemperate
stela	seignorial	metaphorical
chimerical	metaphysical	nonsequentially
simulacrum	curia	circs
scions	tices	sexaganarian
moue	tyro	diaphane
epismatic	cathartic	opined
lilial	Hilbert space	maelstrom
aureole	peremptory	rictus
euphuistic	fealty	unshriven
pargetting	yow	ordained
emend	revenant	conflated
basilisk	penduling (not sure about this one to be honest!)	prosaic
termagant	disingenuousness	gimcrack
lubricious	exculpation	spites
euhemeristcially	dimpling	abomination
prurient	pinchers and poignard	ululating
protuberant	encumbrance	black capped judge
proscription	crepuscular	hubristic
encomium	banking (as in the fire)	saltire
antaphrodisiac	untrammelled	cerulean
chrismatory	dexterity	banality
salacious	tutelage	perturbation
indomitable

Poor Quality Words and Phrases in the Book

real cosy (really cosy: I appreciate that this is in the context of the dialogue spoken by an Australian but why not get it right for the Brits now and again rather than pandering to the people who want to speak like someone else?)

fearful (afraid)

start point (starting point)

gun the engine (pure Hollywood)

doctorate thesis (doctoral thesis is more appropriate)

chatting with (chatting to)

brought in (taken in)

spoken with (spoken to is better)

exited (I've never liked this!)

straightaway (why contract these two words? straight away)

flashlight (that's not the same as a torch, which is what he meant)

oh my god (I find this so offensive yet it has gained such currency I'm afraid)

cancan (Can Can)

barroom (what ever happened to the bar room: why contract this phrase?)

toilsome task (what?)

movie (I still talk about films and will never use movies except in the context of a proper noun)

cane (walking stick, please)

beat up on him (again, Hill uses this compltely out of context but in deference to whom I wonder?)

never spoke with (Hill used this in the context of what was supposed to be a report from a 16th century document: other parts of this dialogue included more appropriate stylistics so why ruin it with something that is simply wrong?)

it's your call (euck!)

, and (it's very common to use the Oxford comma ... incorrectly as in this book)

spasmed (a noun becoming a verb?)

Hill used the word bathroom in place of toilet, lavatory or loo but on page 434 he redeemed himself in part with this dialogue: Thor resumed his seat. Mig stood up and said. 'Can I use your bathroom?' 'If you mean bog, there's one downstairs, through the kitchen, turn left.'

snuck (I just don't like this uneducated transformation of the word sneak)

head stove in (stoved in at least!)

Foreign Words and Phrases in the Book

lux fiat

hidalgo

felix culpa

muleta

tenderilla

picaros

tu quoque

coup de theatre

de gustibus non disputandum est

promotor iustitiae

Duncan Williamson
5 November 2005