Reginald Hill’s Dialogues of the Dead is a bridge that spans the classic English whodunit and the dark heart of contemporary crime fiction, the serial-killer novel….The fertility of Hill’s imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality of his literary style never cease to delight. (Val McDermid)

Normally, there would be nothing sinister about a death by drowning and a motorcycle fatality–had these tragic occurrences not been predicted before the fact in a pair of macabre Dialogues submitted to a Yorkshire short story competition. Yet the local police department is slow to act–until the arrival of a third Dialogue…and another corpse.

A darkness is settling over a terrorized community, brought on by a genius fiend who hides clues to his horrific acts in complex riddles and brilliant wordplay. Now two seasoned CID investigators, Peter Pascoe and Fat Andy Dalziel, are racing against a clock whose every tick signals more blood and outrage, caught in the twisted game of a diabolical killer who is turning their jurisdiction into a slaughterhouse.