Product Description

When a four-year-old child is abducted from an Essex kindergarten, Detective Inspector Dog Cicero soon realizes that this is to be no routine investigation. Something about the child's mother troubles him. Maybe it's just the fact that she comes from Derry, and Cicero's Northern Ireland scars go deeper than his ruined face. But he feels there's more to it than that.

Why, for instance, is Superintendent Toby Tench leaving his devious Special Branch footprints all over Cicero's Romchurch patch? And why does he want the courts to release Jane Maguire on bail after she makes an incriminating confession?

Tench plays his cards close to his chest, and Cicero finds the odds are stacked against him both personally and professionally - not that he will let that stop him. For Dog's a gambling man, and when death's the only game in town, a gambling man has got to play.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #480137 in Books
• Published on: 1997
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'Reginald Hill writes brilliantly throughout, creating memorable characters with chiselled skill' Sunday Times 'Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' Observer

From the Publisher
FIRST PUBLISHED AS A PATRICK RUELL NOVEL

'One of Britain's most consistantly excellent crime novelists' - The Times

'Read him' - London Review of Books

About the Author
Reginald Hill was born in Co. Durham and brought up in Cumberland where he now lives quietly with his wife, Pat, and not so quietly with their labrador bitch and two Siamese cats. A full-time writer since 1980, he has written over forty books and won prizes for individual novels (including the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year for Bones and Silence) and for short stories. In 1995 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger for his lifetime contribution to crime-writing. He spent many years as a teacher in Yorkshire which provided the inspiration and setting for the novels featuring the Falstaffian figure of Andy Dalziel, Head of Mid-Yorkshire CID, and his more sensitive sidekick, Peter Pascoe, whose adventures in the detective trade have been the basis of one of the most satisfying novel sequences of the modem age. Their popularity has been carried over into the hugely successful BBC television series featuring Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan. The same qualities of style, pace, characterization and humour are evident in the books featuring his other series character, Joe Sixsmith, the likeable redundant lathe operator turned PI from Luton. Hill says he was delighted to win the Diamond Dagger because it finally confirmed he had made the right career choice and now he can really get down to it.

Customer Reviews

The Only Game.
The Only Game by Reginald Hill. Harpers-Collins Publishers 1997. First published in Great Britain by Harper-Collins Publishers 1991 under the authors pseudonym Patrick Buell

Inspector Dog Cicero begins to investigate a missing child, whose disappearance looks suspiciously like a case of child abuse or even murder. The flaming red hair of the child's beautiful mother, Mrs. Jane Maguire, and her Irish lilt bring back painful memories of a time 10 years previously in Ireland with Special Services. His face was half blown off and the woman he loved was killed in a car bomb explosion set by the IRA. Jane reminds Dog of his lost lover and he cannot decide if his unwillingness to believe Jane guilty of the murder of her child is because of her resemblance to his former lover or to the paucity of facts supporting her guilt.

In his investigation Dog keeps stumbling over Superintendent Toby Tench of Special Branch and begins to wonder if there is more to Jane than meets the eye. The meanness and jealousy of Toby Tench, a schoolmate and bully from Dog's younger days have not improved and Dog must be not only circumspect but guarded to keep his disfigured body in one piece.

As the complex and riveting story plunges ahead with swiftness and clarity, Dog discovers not only what happened in Ireland 10 years previously but the story behind the mysterious Jane and her dead husband. Consummate gambler Uncle Endo, Dog's spiritual guide and teacher, has an aphorism (or are they really Dog's?) for every occasion and as the story races to it's surprising conclusion Dog places his life and happiness on the line.

This wonderfully written book has enough twists and turns to keep everyone guessing until the very end and enough gut wrenching scenes to keep the pages turning. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it to all mystery fans.

Hill is really good
I find myself surprised that i like this book. I don't often like books where the author strays away from their normal characters into something completely different...but this book is really good. i would say it is equally as good as many of the dalziel and pascoe books.

Reginald Hill really does have a great way of building up characters until they just jump off the page at you. he also is able to create really engaging and intriguing plots, which are always original. this is one qualifies yet again. it's a really well-paced book, and you get the impression that Hill is in complete control as he leads you by the nose to an excellent conclusion. and there are one or two really great twists right near the end that i just did not see coming.