Fans of Dalziel and Pascoe who might wonder how this unlikely pair ever got together will have their curiosity satisfied by reading “The Last National Service Man” in this collection of four stories. Dalziel is the fat detective who can “consume malt whiskey at a rate which had caused the waiter to summon his work-mates to view the spectacle,” and Pascoe his more intellectual and skeptical colleague. They make an odd couple that consistently amuse while solving crimes.Dalziel reminds one of the wonderful Inspector Dover of Joyce Porter. They are both uncouth, fat, and lazy except that Dalziel is truly bright and manipulative. He actually solves crimes, unlike Dover, who stumbles on to the correct solution. Pascoe, his love/hate relationship Oxfordeducated subordinate, who uses words like hydriotaphic and philopolemic. My favorite story, if one can have favorites, is Ghost." There are three main causes of ghosts, relates Dalziel, our expert, at a dinner party: “One: bad cooking. Two: bad ventilation. Three: bad conscience." Since the air conditioning was just recently installed and the housewife is known for her good cooking, only one option was left and Dalziel, to Pascoe’s consternation, agrees to check out the ghost. Dalziel, as usual, has something else up his sleeve, which he has to hide from Pascoe, whom he sends on a wild cat chase. Another story, uncharacteristically, takes place in the year 2010. An astronaut, stepping off his lunar module, falls to the surface uttering the unfinished phrase, Oh mer… There is rampant speculation in the press as to what he meant to say, the religious insisting it had to be Oh mère de Dieu. A surprising exclamation for a lifetime member of the Société Athéiste et Humaniste de France. The French newspapers realized, of course, that he was merely exclaiming what any civilized frog would under the circumstances: Oh merde. The murder was accomplished in a shocking fashion. “His TEC (Total Environment Costume) had been tampered with. “The mìcrocircuitry of the residual products unit of his TEC had been deliberately cross-linked with both the main and the reserve power systems in such a manner that it needed only the addition of a conductive element, in this case Iiquescent, to complete the circuit with unfortunate, that is, fatal, consequences." Heh, heh.
I was sceptical about reading short stories about Dalziel and Pascoe but was pleasantly surprised by how good they are. My favourite is the first one about Pascoe's and Dalziel's first meeting which has some classic banter between them. To me it felt like an accurate portrayal of both characters a few years ago and I loved Daziel's tactics!The second story was also very good with some interesting characters that Pascoe has to interrogate at a dinner party.I felt the third story was a bit pointless but then there are some mysteries that policeman have to solve which end up having a pretty lame solution!The last story One Small Step was an interesting portrayal of 2010 and a much older Dalziel and Pascoe. It was a bit like something out of a sci-fi film but I thought it mainly worked quite well although Pascoe's behaviour was not what I expected!All in all a good collection of stories which will be particularly appealing for Dalziel and Pascoe fans.
