Crime Fiction Novel Report

Introduction
In the novel, Good Morning, Midnight, by Reginald Hill, there are two detectives that are taking on the case of Palinurus (Pal) Maciver. These detectives are Andy Dalziel (Fat Andy) and Peter Pascoe. Pal Maciver is found dead in a locked room of his house. What is so peculiar of the apparent suicide is that he has mirrored the way his father killed himself ten years earlier. Pascoe is determined to find out the truth, despite Dalziel's efforts to put get him off the scene. He begins to look into what Dalziel’s connection with Kay Kafka is and why he is so sure that she can have had nothing to do with Pal's death. All of Pascoe’s suspicions lead into a page-turner because of the books incredible suspense and action.

Character Profile - Detectives
Andy Dalziel is the lead detective in the case of Pal Maciver’s suicide along with his apprentice, Peter Pascoe. Andy Dalziel is known throughout the book as Fat Andy because of his size. If you aren’t paying attention in the book you will think they are two people because it is not clear from the start they are the same person. As I got further and further along in the book, Dalziel began to remind me of Simon Cowell from American Idol. He is rude, says what he thinks and yet has a streak of kindness running through him that will show through every so often. Dalziel's main strength is his Yorkshire brusqueness, which makes for very entertaining reading. Because of this, Dalziel is probably one of the most outstanding characters in the novel. Dalziel is suspicious of Pascoe, who is university-educated, and doubts that he has it in him to be a good detective. But over time, they both come to appreciate each other's strengths and prove to be an excellent duo.
Pascoe is the exact opposite of Dalziel as he is much kinder in general and to the public. The reader views him as the nice, curious, new guy who still has much to learn from his superior, Dalziel. Pascoe, much more cultured and sensitive to others feelings, is the exact opposite of Dalziel. Pascoe starts to become suspicious of Dalziel. He becomes even more suspicious of him when Dalziel stonewalls his enquiries about Pal’s hated stepmother, Kay Kafka. Pascoe is determined to find out whether it was suicide or murder and what the nature of Dalziel's relationship is with Kafka.

Clues
The clues start to be shown from the beginning when Pal Maciver is found dead in a locked room, having died in exactly the same way as his father. Both Pal Maciver Jr. and Sr. had a book of Emily Dickinson poetry found by their sides. This book proves to contain key evidence withheld in the pages and the poem is where the book gets its name. Pal juniors death is initially put down to suicide, but events occur to point towards it being murder. He was positioned lying down with a shotgun to his head. It seems as if he pulled the trigger with his big toe, but Pascoe digs deep to find out the truth. The main suspect is Pal's stepmother, Kay Kafka, with whom Pal had a stormy relationship. But for reasons unknown to Pascoe, Kafka refuses to admit that she could have had anything to do with the death. As the police investigate, Dalziel appears to compromise the case with his relationship with Kafka. While the international corporate world and government spies intersect the investigation, Pascoe begins to worry that Dalziel is trying to cover up Kafka as the murderer. Even stranger is that Dalziel led the inquiries into the Maciver Seniors suicide.
With more poking around, Pal finds a complex family relationship between Kay Kafka and her stepchildren; one of whom worships Kay, while the other two hate her. Pascoe is determined to find out the truth, despite Dalziel's efforts to guide him away from Kafka. Pascoe tries to find the connection of Dalziel with Kay Kafka and why he is covering for her. Literary allusions stick out from characters and action for the reader to see as key evidence in the story. At the beginning of the novel, as the reader, you can tell that the death of Pal isn’t a suicide through allusions used by the author. Pascoe also finds a long audio recording, which establishes itself as being key evidence pointing towards Kafka. All of a sudden, a key witness, the hooker Madame Dolores vanishes and Dalziel and Pascoe have to think fast before more people are killed.



Three Passages
One of my favourite parts in the novel where the book just starts to heat up is at the beginning of page 134. This is when Pascoe is doing some research on his own about the murder and he is trying to not let Dalziel here of what he is doing even though they are partners. He does this because of the fact that he doesn’t trust his superior. “And, just to be thorough, and in order to see exactly how much of a copycat it is, I’d like you to dive into the evidence store and see what you can find relating to the suicide of Palinurus Maciver Senior. Discreetly. You know how leaky this place is, and I shouldn’t like the press making a thing about the copycat element. In fact he didn’t give a toss about the press, it was Andy Dalziel whose antennae he didn’t want to alert.”
In this quote, Pascoe is telling Shirley Novello to do some research on the case.
The second quote I chose is on page 238 when Pascoe is thinking of the night when his wife, Ellie is talking to him about the case. She worries that he is so caught up in trying to find the evidence for a murder, when it may very well be the suicide it appears to be. “Last night, Ellie had asked him about the case and he’d told her it was out of his hands, making a comic story of himself and Wield being summoned to the head’s study. He’d been rather taken aback when she’d said, “Maybe the trouble is you’d much rather it were murder then suicide, Peter.” “Why do you say that?” he asked. “Perhaps because you find murder much easier to deal with.” He’d lain in bed thinking about this. And she was right of course, damn her.” This, however, still does not affect Pascoe’s train of thought and it makes him even hungrier to find evidence on the case he still believes is a murder.
The third and final quote I’ve decided to share is on page 374 when Pascoe shows how capable a detective he is interrogating Mrs. Kafka. He had been asking very intrusive and sensitive questions but he asks the questions in a way that is so kind that she feels that she wants to answer the questions. “She smiled at him and then went on, “I think that what he was saying to me by leaving the volume open at this poem was, listen, love, I got this one right in the end. Now I know what this one means. He was offering the only kind of comfort he could think of. I believe he tried to write me a note explaining what was going on in his mind, saying how sorry he was, but found the only words he could use were inadequate. So he chose instead to let Emily describe how he felt for him and, by using her poem he said he loved me.” She fell silent Pascoe was deeply moved. All the nasty things that had been said about this woman sounded in his head now like mere snarls of envy and resentment.” In the quote, Pascoe asks why in Pal Maciver Seniors suicide he had a poem of Emily Dickinson beside him. Pascoe continues to persist in his interrogations of her in search of more truths and possibly the answer to the murder.

By Andrew Irwin