On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On Beulah Height is a good mystery novel, maybe even very good; yet, for me, it was very difficult to get immersed in the world of the novel's characters. It took me about 100 pages to become sort of engaged with the plethora of characters and with the complex plot. It is my first book by Reginald Hill; I will try another one to see whether some familiarity with the detectives (the novel is a part of the popular Dalziel and Pascoe series) improves my reception.

Three little girls had disappeared from a farming village in the Mid-Yorkshire Dales area. The police had been unable to find the bodies or even determine what happened to the girls. Then, the village and surrounding areas were flooded in order to build a reservoir. More than ten years later, the drought caused the water levels to drop, and the remnants of the flooded village were uncovered. And then... another little girl disappears. The present is deeply interwoven with the past. The summer concert featuring Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder (Songs for Dead Children) provides fitting background to the dramatic events. The convoluted yet logical denouement requires constant focus on the text.

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