The Roar of the Butterflies by Reginald Hill (Anchor Canada 2008)

Joe Sixsmith was adrift in space.

Light years beneath him gleamed the tiny orb he was supposed to make contact with, but he knew it was an impossible dream.

His muscles had melted, his lungs were starved of oxygen, and the only part of his mind not paralysed by terror was the bit that dealt with ’fonlies.

’fonly I’d done this … ’fonly I’d done that …

‘No use messing with ’fonlies,’ Aunt Mirabelle used to say. ‘’fonlies don’t get your homework done, Joseph. You miss your football Saturday morning, you’ve got no one to blame ’cept yourself.’

How right she was! No one to blame ’cept himself … except maybe Willie Woodbine for being such a socials climber … and Beryl Boddington maybe for standing him up … and definitely Merv Golightly for having a mouth like the Channel Tunnel … but first and last and as usual, himself, Joseph Gaylord (even Mirabelle kept quiet about that) Sixsmith for always going boldly half-assed where nobody had ever come back from before!

Singing The Sadness by Reginald Hill (Thomas Dunne Books 1999)

Joe did not spend a lot of time bemoaning the fact that God, who could easily have created him six foot six, rippling with muscles and coruscating with charisma, had opted instead for five foot five, a sagging waist, and social invisibility except maybe in a convention of white supremacists. What did gripe him a bit was there was no consistency. Man who could spend twenty minutes trying to catch the waiter's eye in a half-empty restaurant ought to be able to slip out of a crowded hospital ward without attracting attention, but the long eye of the law was not to be denied.

'Joe, where are you rushing off to?' said Prince, taking his elbow as he stepped into the corridor.

Born Guilty by Reginald Hill (St Martin's Press 1995)

'My oh my,' said Merv Golightly as Joe got into his taxi. 'It's a dressy up party, is it? Have to hurry, don't want you to be any later.'

'I'm not late,' protested Joe.

'Oh yes, you are. About thirty years in that suit, I'd say!'

Merv, who appreciated a good joke, especially his own, laughed at this one for the first five minutes of the journey. Even Joe had to admit there was a real point to it. What to wear at Willie Woodbine's party had exercised his mind greatly. The balding cord jacket was obviously out, though he had hopes if it got much smoother, it might eventually pass for a blazer in the dark with the light behind it. This left either the casual look, which meant his blue leather jerkin over a Gary Glitter T-shirt; or the formal look which meant his funeral, wedding, and choir performance suit.

It was a good suit. He'd had it so long it had come back into fashion twice, and there was hardly a mark on it. Unfortunately, with its broad lapels, slanting pockets, triple=buttoned jacket and seventeem-inch trousers with a two-inch turn, it was at the bottom of its fashion cycle just now.

A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill (Collins Crime Club 1970)

Superintendent Andrew Dalziel was a big man. When he took his jacket off and dropped it over the back of a chair it was like a Bedouin pitching camp. He had a big head, greying now; big eyes, short-sighted, but losing nothing of their penetrating force behind a pair of solidframed spectacles; and he blew his big nose into a khaki handkerchief a foot-and-a-half square. He had been a vicious lock forward in his time, which had been a time before speed and dexterity were placed higher in the list of a pack's qualities than sheer indestructibility. The same order of priorities had brought him to his present office. He was a man not difficult to mock. But it was dangerous sport. And perhaps therefore all the more tempting to a Detective-Sergeant who was twenty years younger, had a degree in social sciences and read works of criminology.

Dalziel sank over his chair and scratched himself vigorously between the legs. Not absent-mindedly - nothing he did was mannerism - but with conscious sensuousness. Like scratching a dog to keep it happy, a constable had once said within range of Dalziel's very sharp hearing. He had liked the simile and therefore ignored it.

Killing the Lawyers by Reginald Hill (Harper Collins 1997)

"I know the Spartans, that's my old club, have been using the track evenings for training to help it settle. Plus there's the workmen putting finishing touches. Plus people using other bits of the Plezz could easily stroll in here. Shouldn't you concentrate on who's got access to the spare keys? Can't be too many of them."

Oh dear, thought Joe. Like a good princess, she wasn't going to be shy about telling the help what they ought to be working at.

He said, "Got your key handy?"

She passed it over. Joe moved along the wall of metal lockers. They came in blocks of eight. Zak's was second from the left. He counted two in the next block and inserted the key. The door opened. He did the same with the next block.

,p>This way the manufacturers only need eight variations on locks and keys instead of an infinity," he explained.

"But it's lousy security!" she protested angrily.

"Saves rate payers money," said Joe with civic sternness. "As for security, your crook's got to work it out first."

"You worked it out," she said not un admiringly

That's my job," he said modestly, not thinking it worthwhile to reveal that the lockers at Robco Engineering where he'd worked nearly twenty years had suffered from the same deficiency which he'd worked out after ten.

Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill (Dell 1990)

"You reckon?" she said, picking up her book once more. This time he glimpsed its title. Anna Karenina. Dalziel's reading was not extensive. Fiction-wise, it was restricted almost entirely to Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii, which he'd stolen from his honeymoon hotel and read circularly as if it were Finnegans Wake. But Anna Karenina he knew because of the Garbo movie. He'd been more concerned with copping a feel from the buxom lass by his side than watching the elegant shadow on the screen, but he did remember it hadn't been a bundle of laughs.

Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill (Dell Publishing 1994)

Wield drank some more and said, "You talk like this place were special, I mean, really special. Almost like, perfect."

"Good Lord, no! Enscombe is very much fuctatus rather than perfectus, I'm glad to say. Perfection is unnatural, Sergeant, because it implies the absence of either development or decline. Haven't you noticed it's the political parties and the religions with the clearest notions of the perfect society that cause the most harm? Once admit the notion of human perfectibility, and the end can be made to justify any amount of pain and suffering along the way. Besides, it would put us both out of work. No crime in the perfect society, and no desire to read about the imperfect past either! So here's to imperfection!"

They both drank deep.