This is the fourth of the Dalziel & Pascoe books that I've read & I've been dotting backwards & forwards in time, so the relationship between them & between Pascoe & Ellie has been a little disjointed. Revisiting my thoughts when I read the last one...

I read the first in the series 'A Clubbable Woman' and really disliked both leads. I then read 'Ruling Passion' and it totally turned me around in that both Dalziel and Pascoe were more rounded characters and more sympathetic. 'A Pinch of Snuff' had me back at square one in that I didn't like either of them (and the subject matter even less!!) but I had more on my TBR pile (they were all given to me by a friend) and so turned to the next, cronologically, in my possession which was Underworld - I really enjoyed that one.

This time I'm back near the beginning as this is the 2nd in the series. In spite of that, I found this one very enjoyable. I'm starting to suspect that it's not the maturity of the writing or of the characters and their relationships, but the subject matter and adjusting to the era. This book, like all the others I've read so far, is a period piece, written and set in the 1970's and the language and attitudes are all perfectly pitched for that time: sexism is rife, feminism is in it's early stages & ridiculed by 'working men' but supported by academics, smoking in the workplace, drinking and driving, drinking at lunchtime are all socially acceptable.

The setting is a college campus. When a memorial statue is moved to make way for expansion, a body is found and our two leads arrive to investigate. They find a mixed bunch of academics: old stagers set in their ways and old fashioned, mixed in with a younger more progressive generation including Pascoe's old girlfriend Ellie. The students are stereotypically long haired hippie types with the odd left wing radical, mixed up in a cult of personality led by Franny Roote the head of the Students Union and Stuart Cockshut the chief rabble rouser.

Relationships between staff and students are reasonable, but the presence of the Police, and in particular Dalziel, is like the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. We move through the investigation, the inevitable second corpse, and the equally inevitable denouement and apprehension of the killer.

Yet another nice easy read, a few evenings saw me through it without effort (and once again was an antidote to yet another difficult chapter of The Almost Moon - will I ever finish it!?). Coincidently, as I logged my completion online, I noticed that the author had passed away the day before.

I plan ‘releasing’ this book at the next Edinburgh Bookcrossing Meet-up. The Edinburgh BookCrossing meetings are held every first Thursday of the month - we’re currently hosted by Biblos bar and restaurant on the corner of Chambers Street and North Bridge.

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