Reginald Hill was brought up in Cumbria, and has returned there after many years in Yorkshire. His Dalziel and Pascoe novels are amongst the best-loved and most admired in crime fiction. They have been adapted by the BBC, won many awards and are top ten bestsellers.

'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'The finest male English contemporary crime writer' Val McDermid'Reginald Hill's novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories intertwining'Ian Rankin'One of Britain's most consistently excellent crime novelists' The Times'These novels last, like a grand malt whisky – rounded, rich, intoxicating… Here is an author at his formidable best'Frances Fyfield, Mail on Sunday'So far out in front that he need not bother looking over his shoulder' Sunday Telegraph'He is probably the best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world' Andrew Taylor, Independent'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Tom Hiney, Observer