[.ca] Pinch of Snuff (ISBN 0586072500)

From Amazon.com:
Splitting a main character into two parts that compliment and confound each other has worked well for mystery writers from Conan Doyle to Rex Stout (and for non-mystery writers such as Patrick O'Brian in his Aubrey/Maturin sea stories). Reginald Hill's unique contributions to this form are his books about two policemen in an unnamed city in Northern England, Detectives Dalziel (pronounced "Dee-al" in the TV version) and Pascoe. Both get to show off their strengths and shortcomings in this wonderfully macabre second book in the series; Dalziel's brawn and instinct meets Pascoe's intellect as the two investigate pornographic "snuff" films in which the actors really wind up dead.

Hill begins to hit his stride with Dalziel and Pascoe:
Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe's dentist, who is used to seeing broken jaws and broken teeth, tells Pascoe that a scene in an X-rated film where a women is beaten is real, not staged. This leads Peter and his wife Ellie to check out the Calliope Kinema Club, a trendy venue for soft-core porn in an otherwise proper and well-to-do neighborhood. Sergeant Wield already has the place under surveillance, due to neighborhood complaints and scandalized locals, but Wield and Pascoe's Boss Superintendant Dalziel is skeptical that anyone is guilty of anything more than voyeurism until an indisputable murder turns up the heat. The books are labeled the Dalziel and Pascoe books, but I always think of them as the Peter Pascoe / Ellie Pascoe / Edgar Wield / Andy Dalziel books, and all four characters get to shine in this one. Not as innovative as most of the later books in the series, but still an excellent police procedural, and well as showing much of the sly humor and characterization that makes Hill's books such a delight.

A solid, satisfying Dalziel/Pasco adventure:
My copy of A Pinch of Snuff is a 21st printing; this book must be really popular. Reginald Hill's long-running Dalziel/Pasco series never fails to deliver a fine story. Detective Inspector Dalziel allows Detective Sergeant Peter Pasco to look into a report that the beating of an actress in a porn film appears to have been the real thing. Another case's investigation begins to overlap this one, and through step-by-step detective work, the story unfolds. I enjoyed the story; it's hard to find a better British police procedural than those of Reginald Hill. I don't normally like or read British police procedurals, but Hill's in a class by himself. Read this one and whatever you do, don't miss his later books in this series. On Beulah Height, for instance, is a true masterpiece.