A new Dalziel and Pascoe novel from Britain's finest male crime writer: `Reginald Hill stands head and shoulders above any other writer of homebred crime fiction' - Tom Hiney, Observer

A man drowns. Another dies in a motorbike crash. Two accidents ... yet in a pair of so-called Dialogues sent to the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette as entries in a short story competition, someone seems to be taking responsibility for the deaths.

In Mid-Yorkshire CID these claims are greeted with disbelief. But when the story is leaked to television and a third indisputable murder takes place, Dalziel and Pascoe find themselves playing a game no one knows the rules of against an opponent known only as the Wordman.