Blood Sympathy (Joe Sixsmith, Book 1)

Description

'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Observer PI can mean many things, but can it really mean a balding, middle-aged lathe operator from a high rise in Luton? Joe Sixsmith thinks it can. His Aunt Mirabelle thinks you'd have to be crazy to hire him, and Joe's current clients certainly fit the bill. One's confessing to the brutal murder of his whole family; another thinks she's a witch. Next to them, the two heavies who believe Joe is hiding their illicit drugs seem almost normal. As Joe stumbles his way through bodies, gangsters and hostile police officers, he is protected by a combination of sheer luck and the help of a new lady friend. And soon it seems like he might just surpass everyone's expectations...

Reginald Hill was brought up in Cumbria, and has returned there after many years in Yorkshire. With his first crime novel, A Clubbable Woman, he was hailed as 'the crime novel's best hope' and thirty years on he has more than fulfilled that prophecy.

'Splendid moments in this entertaining mystery' Sunday Telegraph 'A thoroughly engaging investigator' 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' Donna Leon, Sunday Times 'Reginald Hill's novels are really dances to the music of time' Ian Rankin 'The best crime novel of the year' Natasha Cooper, The Times (of On Beulah Height)