Nail Through the Heart was another Kindle freebie, a crime novel set in Thailand. I enjoyed it, but not enough to try others in the series.
Death's Jest Book is the umpteenth entry in the Dalziel and Pascoe series. It's one of those examples of an author's craft improving even as his invention flags. Hill's craft has never been better -- his similes are crisp and witty, his dialog is strong, Frannie Root's letters have a distinctive voice, and so on. At the same time, the story isn't that compelling. It's mostly a cleanup operation from Dialogues of the Dead, resolving the hanging plotline of an uncaught murderer, wrapping up Pascoe's pas de deux with Frannie Root, and that's about it.
I've felt for a long time that crime novels can give a writer a leg up by giving him a natural impetus forward -- there's always something to move the plot forward, because he ultimately has to resolve the situation created by the crime. In Death's Jest Book, Hill shows the reverse; with only a minimal crime to focus on, the plot completely languishes, and, however fun the writing, it's not enough to save the book.
One other big shortcoming is series-itis. Hill has crafted a few long-running characters by this point (Wield, Dalziel, Pascoe, Ellie) as well as some shorter-running ones who he wants to make long-term (mainly Novello, but also "Hat" Bowler), and he wants to give them all a role in the book -- if he'd taken out some of those sub-plots, the book would've been shorter and stronger. I don't know if he's worried that we'll forget who they are if they don't show up or what. (Compare this with Jim Butcher, who's got the confidence to drop characters out of sight for 3-4 books at a time)
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