Blood Sympathy

Book excerpt: Detective and mystery stories. PI can mean many things, but can it really mean a balding, middle-agd redundant lathe operator from a high rise in Luton, Beds? Joe Sixsmith thinks it can. His Aunt Mirabelle thinks you'd have to be crazy to hire him, and Joe's current clients certainly fit the bill. One seems to be confessing to the brutal murder of his whole family; another thinks she's a witch. Alongside them, the two heavies who believe Joe is hiding their illicit drugs seem almost normal. In the past Reginald Hill has brought wit, style and compassion to police investigation. Now he does the same for the private sector, and -- in perhaps his greatest feat of creation -- reinvents Luton in the process.