Reginald Hill: R.I.P.

This is such sad news. Reginald Hill, one of my favorite mystery writers and a lovely man, died at the age of only 75. Hill was the creator of the Yorkshire detective series featuring Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe, as well as the Joe Sixsmith series and numerous stand-alones.  Read an interview with Reginald Hill that appeared on Mystery Fanfare here. I am so saddened by this loss of this wonderful author.

Read Tributes in Shots Magazine

Obituary from The Guardian: 
Hill charted the ups and downs of his two contrasting sleuths in more than 20 novels published over four decades after his debut, A Clubbable Woman (1970) alongside a substantial body of other crime fiction and thrillers. He won the Crime Writers Association's Golden Dagger in 1990 for Bones and Silence, and the Diamond Dagger for the series as a whole in 1995.

Writer Ian Rankin, who won the Diamond Dagger himself in 2005, paid tribute to Hill's great good humour, the intelligence of his writing and the generous advice he gave to young authors.

"I didn't read crime fiction until I was in my 20s," Rankin said. "Hill was one of the first British writers I read. His plotting was elegant and his characters were larger than life – once you read about Andy Dalziel he's never forgotten. I daresay there are shadings of him in my Inspector Rebus – they're both bolshie and maverick and they don't look after themselves."

According to Rankin, Hill was seen as a "traditional crime writer, but with a modern sensibility".

"He had a lot of fun with his characters," he added, "there was even a story where he sent Dalziel into space. But he allowed the real world to be part of his stories, letting his characters age in real time."

Telegraph Obit: 

Hill called himself a crime novelist, but his work owed nothing to the hard-boiled tradition of the genre. His approach was cerebral, his plots labyrinthine, his characterisations sharply etched, and his dialogue richly laced with humour. His novels bristle with shrewd perceptions and whimsical wit.

It was this capricious streak, combined with Hill’s unflinching treatment of crime’s darker side, that marked him out as a distinctive writer. Read More Here.