Height and Depth - the drowning of Dendale
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| Apologies to Tom Blackwell for lightly modifying his excellent photograph of Thruscross Reservoir under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ |
Reginald Hill wrote the Dalziel and Pascoe novel 'On Beulah Height' in 1998 and it follows the mores and tropes of detective fiction of the time in dealing with the agony of murdered children in a fairly superficial, even entertaining, way. The Depth of this story is not so much in the detection (or having well rounded and flawed detectives which has subsequently become standard in the genre) as having a small glimpse into the child's eye view. This comes in two art forms. The folk tale monster hiding under a stone in Nina and the Nix and Mahler's songs for dead children Kindertotenlieder which (spoiler alert) the abused child wields as a weapon of revenge. Added to this is a sense of the isolated rural North England landscape drowned so that the masses of Manchester (or wherever) can pour it down the sink. As in Thruscross bodies, headstones and a sense of historical continuity are disrupted in the drowning of the fictional Dendale. So much is inevitable to enable the living to go on dying. Just a shame that Reginald Hill is now amongst them.
PS. If you want to enjoy Hill without feeling the novel is overshadowed by the late great Warren Clarke's TV portrayal of Dalziel then I heartily recommend The Woodcutter of 2010. It will surprise you.
