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Adapted into a long-running hit show for the BBC, the Gold Dagger Award-winning series is now available as eBooks. If Alison Girling, former principal of England's Holm Coultram College, died in an avalanche in Austria, why has her skeleton been unearthed on campus? While no love is lost between conservative detective Andrew Dalziel and the entirety of Liberal Arts, his attention to the grim discovery must be paid. But when he and Peter Pascoe scour the ivory tower for answers, they discover show more that the shady faculty and creepy student body have more to bury than just one corpse. Try two-and counting. As Pascoe is sidelined by an old college flame, Dalziel's suspicions of academia are becoming dire. Because the deeper he digs for secrets, the dirtier they get. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
It's a lot of fun to reread this book years after reading the entire run of Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries. It is here, rather than in the first book in the series (A Clubbable Woman) that we start to understand the gulf between Pascoe and Dalziel, the former a college-educated young man and the latter an old, fat, high-school educated and extremely canny police superintendent. This is also the first book in which we meet Ellie, Pascoe's college girlfriend and now a 31-year-old college instructor herself. Her relationship with Pascoe is a real highlight of this series going forward.
This particular mystery is nicely complex and difficult to guess. There are lots of clues and plenty of red herrings, and even with lots of experience reading show more mysteries I only got the answer half-right. (I had remembered nothing about the book after first reading it some 30-40 years ago.) The picture of progressive, even dissolute college life (the book was originally published in 1971) sets the stage for a fundamental Dalziel/Pascoe uneasiness as their partnership goes on. The characters are drawn very well, even those who have only a short time on the stage. The writing is sharp and clear and occasionally quite beautiful.
I'm very glad I decided to reread this series; it's even better than I remember. show less
This particular mystery is nicely complex and difficult to guess. There are lots of clues and plenty of red herrings, and even with lots of experience reading show more mysteries I only got the answer half-right. (I had remembered nothing about the book after first reading it some 30-40 years ago.) The picture of progressive, even dissolute college life (the book was originally published in 1971) sets the stage for a fundamental Dalziel/Pascoe uneasiness as their partnership goes on. The characters are drawn very well, even those who have only a short time on the stage. The writing is sharp and clear and occasionally quite beautiful.
I'm very glad I decided to reread this series; it's even better than I remember. show less
An Advancement of Writing
Review of the Grafton Books paperback (1987) of the Collins Crime Club hardcover original (1971)
This second in the Dalziel (pronounced Dee-El) and Pascoe series was a distinct improvement over the series opener A Clubbable Woman (1970). The earlier book was overly repellent with its misogynistic rugby club culture and an especially creepy older man / younger girl lechery scene. The detective duo also didn't do any sort of brilliant detecting but show more just wandered around mostly upsetting the suspect characters with a final confession provided without any dramatic confrontation.
Of course with Andy Dalziel at the head of an investigation you are pretty much guaranteed a group of upset suspects and interviewees. Plunking the cantankerous inspector into the world of academia is a guaranteed 'cat among the pigeons' scenario. Dalziel's patter also provided for various entertaining LOL moments such as the one excerpted above, likely a display of pretended ignorance. Pascoe meanwhile renews an earlier romance with young professor/aspiring novelist Ellie Soper, who becomes his wife a few books later in the series.
The case involves the accidental unearthing of a skeleton from underneath a memorial monument to a school's previous Dean. The cold case turns hot when a new victim is discovered and then an apparent suicide is either the solution to the crime spree or a clue to its final solution.
See book cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/AnAdvancementOfLearning.jpg
Cover image of the original Collins Crime Club edition 1971. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I re-read An Advancement of Learning due to a recent discovery of my old mystery paperbacks from the 1980s in a storage locker cleanout. I was especially curious about the precedents for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb in the Slough House espionage series in the personality of Reginald Hill's Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel, which Herron has acknowledged.
See photograph at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZkxI4CXkAAu2sG?format=jpg&name=large
Book haul of the early Dalziel and Pascoe paperbacks, mostly from Grafton Books in the 1980s. Image sourced from Twitter.
Trivia and No Link
An Advancement of Learning was adapted for the long running TV series of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007) as Episode 2 of Series 1. I could not find an online trailer or posting of the episode. show less
Review of the Grafton Books paperback (1987) of the Collins Crime Club hardcover original (1971)
It was illogical, but somehow the thought made Pascoe feel guilty.
'Perhaps he did do the damage in his cottage himself,' he suggested again. 'Like Prospero, burning his books.'
'What did we do him for?' asked Dalziel, interested.
- excerpt from An Advancement of Learning
This second in the Dalziel (pronounced Dee-El) and Pascoe series was a distinct improvement over the series opener A Clubbable Woman (1970). The earlier book was overly repellent with its misogynistic rugby club culture and an especially creepy older man / younger girl lechery scene. The detective duo also didn't do any sort of brilliant detecting but show more just wandered around mostly upsetting the suspect characters with a final confession provided without any dramatic confrontation.
Of course with Andy Dalziel at the head of an investigation you are pretty much guaranteed a group of upset suspects and interviewees. Plunking the cantankerous inspector into the world of academia is a guaranteed 'cat among the pigeons' scenario. Dalziel's patter also provided for various entertaining LOL moments such as the one excerpted above, likely a display of pretended ignorance. Pascoe meanwhile renews an earlier romance with young professor/aspiring novelist Ellie Soper, who becomes his wife a few books later in the series.
The case involves the accidental unearthing of a skeleton from underneath a memorial monument to a school's previous Dean. The cold case turns hot when a new victim is discovered and then an apparent suicide is either the solution to the crime spree or a clue to its final solution.
See book cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/AnAdvancementOfLearning.jpg
Cover image of the original Collins Crime Club edition 1971. Image sourced from Wikipedia.
I re-read An Advancement of Learning due to a recent discovery of my old mystery paperbacks from the 1980s in a storage locker cleanout. I was especially curious about the precedents for Mick Herron's Jackson Lamb in the Slough House espionage series in the personality of Reginald Hill's Chief Inspector Andy Dalziel, which Herron has acknowledged.
See photograph at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZkxI4CXkAAu2sG?format=jpg&name=large
Book haul of the early Dalziel and Pascoe paperbacks, mostly from Grafton Books in the 1980s. Image sourced from Twitter.
Trivia and No Link
An Advancement of Learning was adapted for the long running TV series of Dalziel and Pascoe (1996-2007) as Episode 2 of Series 1. I could not find an online trailer or posting of the episode. show less
This was my first try of the much-recommended Dalziell and Pascoe series and I came away disappointed. The action takes place in the 1980s at a time when colleges of further education and the like were growing towards university status. Holm Coultram college of Liberal Arts and Education had been a small teacher training college for women which became co-educational and offered degree courses. The tensions in the common room arising from this change are central to the story.
Dalziell is a standard, curmudgeonly old-school copper with the stereotypical misogynistic and class-conscious attitudes of his ilk. His subordinate (and, in this book, dogsbody) Pascoe is better educated and more liberal-minded. Somehow I couldn't really generate show more much liking for the pair, nor believe in their relationship.
The plot is clever enough and the denoument reasonably unexpected. I can't fault the procedural aspects of the book. I do have an irrational prejudice against the name Franny for a central character but lack of empathy with the policemen is my main reason for abandoning this series. show less
Dalziell is a standard, curmudgeonly old-school copper with the stereotypical misogynistic and class-conscious attitudes of his ilk. His subordinate (and, in this book, dogsbody) Pascoe is better educated and more liberal-minded. Somehow I couldn't really generate show more much liking for the pair, nor believe in their relationship.
The plot is clever enough and the denoument reasonably unexpected. I can't fault the procedural aspects of the book. I do have an irrational prejudice against the name Franny for a central character but lack of empathy with the policemen is my main reason for abandoning this series. show less
Holm Coultram College is expanding, and to make way for a new building, the administration has decided to uproot a memorial to a former professor. This is upsetting on its own merits for some of the faculty, but it becomes a much more widespread cause for distress when the removal of the statue and its concrete base reveals bones beneath—the actual bones of the memorialized professor. How did she get under there when she was supposed to have died in Austria? What secrets surround her murder that would lead to the deaths of others on campus? Can Dalziel and Pascoe solve the case without causing an outright riot?
This is the second book in the series, and it’s pretty good. Some of the Dalziel and Pascoe books play around with form and show more structure, which can become rather complex, but this one is a straightforward case. That said, I didn’t guess whodunnit but was mostly OK with going along for the ride. I did roll my eyes a bit at some of the 70s attitudes toward women, but fortunately the most obnoxious people of that stripe got their just deserts.
This is a good choice if you’re looking to try out the series and perhaps if you like Morse — the college setting is a bit Oxford-feeling, even though this book is set in Yorkshire. show less
This is the second book in the series, and it’s pretty good. Some of the Dalziel and Pascoe books play around with form and show more structure, which can become rather complex, but this one is a straightforward case. That said, I didn’t guess whodunnit but was mostly OK with going along for the ride. I did roll my eyes a bit at some of the 70s attitudes toward women, but fortunately the most obnoxious people of that stripe got their just deserts.
This is a good choice if you’re looking to try out the series and perhaps if you like Morse — the college setting is a bit Oxford-feeling, even though this book is set in Yorkshire. show less
At a Yorkshire college that once only allowed women, a statue was raised in honour of an academic who died in an avalanche in Austria five years earlier. When the statue is removed in preparation for expansion the body of a woman is found under the concrete pedestal. Confirming first suspicions it is the body of the memorialized professor.
This is the second book in the Dalziel and Pascoe series and introduces Ellie who became Pascoe's wife. I have to admit that I've never really warmed to Ellie, either in print or in the TV series, she can be quite barbed. However, Andy Dalziel is happy because he can grumble about the privileged students. Trying to get them to cooperate tests his patience to the limit. I enjoyed going back in time for show more this one. show less
This is the second book in the Dalziel and Pascoe series and introduces Ellie who became Pascoe's wife. I have to admit that I've never really warmed to Ellie, either in print or in the TV series, she can be quite barbed. However, Andy Dalziel is happy because he can grumble about the privileged students. Trying to get them to cooperate tests his patience to the limit. I enjoyed going back in time for show more this one. show less
Written in the early 1970s and it shows cos it's dreadfully sexist. But it was still very readable. It's interesting that I didn't write this review until I'd finished another crime book written recently and this one is far better written despite the sexism.
[2006-04-04] The second Dalziel and Pascoe novel sees the pair at a college of higher education after the discovery of a corpse under a statue's foundation block. Naturally, life gets even more complicated, and not just because they have to wade through both student and staff politics in their pursuit of the truth. Fresh corpses are provided, and it's up to Dalziel and Pascoe to decide which were murder and which were suicide, ideally without becoming corpses themselves.
Dalziel has no time for students, and the feeling's mutual. But Dalziel doesn't let his dislike lead him into underestimating his opponents, while the students make the mistake of thinking that Dalziel's a fascist pig and therefore stupid. Pascoe's feelings are more show more ambiguous, as he was a graduate recruit to the police force. His former university friends don't approve of his choice of his career, and his liberal sympathies don't always endear him to his colleagues, but this case reassures him that being a copper was the best way for _him_ to change the world for the better. The pair's different experiences and views combine to form a formidable team in this setting, something they'll need to deal with the criminal they're trying to pin down. Even near the end, it seems that it may be a case of knowing who and how without having quite enough evidence to prove it...
This early entry in the series is a relatively simple police procedural, rather than the complex literary game to be found in some of the later novels, but still has Hill's characteristic style and wittiness. It's one for all fans of the series, whether your taste runs to the shorter novels or the long, psychologically complex ones, as it sets up some of the series background. Apart from developing Pascoe's character, it introduces two of the recurring non-police characters. Pascoe is reunited with old university friend Ellie Soper, whom he later marries: and this is the first appearance of Franny Roote, who reappears much later in the series as a major character in a story arc spanning several books. And it is, of course, an entertaining book in its own right. show less
Dalziel has no time for students, and the feeling's mutual. But Dalziel doesn't let his dislike lead him into underestimating his opponents, while the students make the mistake of thinking that Dalziel's a fascist pig and therefore stupid. Pascoe's feelings are more show more ambiguous, as he was a graduate recruit to the police force. His former university friends don't approve of his choice of his career, and his liberal sympathies don't always endear him to his colleagues, but this case reassures him that being a copper was the best way for _him_ to change the world for the better. The pair's different experiences and views combine to form a formidable team in this setting, something they'll need to deal with the criminal they're trying to pin down. Even near the end, it seems that it may be a case of knowing who and how without having quite enough evidence to prove it...
This early entry in the series is a relatively simple police procedural, rather than the complex literary game to be found in some of the later novels, but still has Hill's characteristic style and wittiness. It's one for all fans of the series, whether your taste runs to the shorter novels or the long, psychologically complex ones, as it sets up some of the series background. Apart from developing Pascoe's character, it introduces two of the recurring non-police characters. Pascoe is reunited with old university friend Ellie Soper, whom he later marries: and this is the first appearance of Franny Roote, who reappears much later in the series as a major character in a story arc spanning several books. And it is, of course, an entertaining book in its own right. show less
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Author Information
84+ Works 18,491 Members
Reginald Hill has received Britain's most coveted mystery writers award, the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, as well as the Golden Dagger, for his Dalziel/Pascoe series. (Publisher Provided) Reginald Hill was born in Hartlepool, England on April 3, 1936. He received an English degree from St. Catherine's College, Oxford University and worked as a show more teacher until 1980, when he retired to become a full-time writer. His first novel, A Clubbable Woman, was published in 1970. During his lifetime, he wrote over 50 books that range from historical novels to science fiction including Fell of Dark, No Man's Land, The Spy's Wife, and The Woodcutter. He was best known for the Dalziel and Pascoe series and the Joe Sixsmith series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Patrick Ruell, Dick Morland, and Charles Underhill. He received the 1990 Golden Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year for Bones and Silence and the 1995 Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement. He died from a brain tumor on January 12, 2012 at the age of 75. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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SaPo (262)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- An Advancement of Learning
- Original title
- An Advancement of Learning
- Original publication date
- 1971
- People/Characters
- Andrew Dalziel; Peter Pascoe; Franny Roote
- Important places
- Yorkshire, England, UK
- Related movies
- Dalziel and Pascoe (1996 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- ...to have the true testimonies of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objections, I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces it hath received, all from ignorance; but ignorance se... (show all)verally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines; sometimes in the severity and arrogance of politiques; and sometimes in errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.
--Sir Francis Bacon
The Advancement of Learning - First words
- There had been a great deal of snow that December, followed by hard frost.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)'Oh, yes' he said. 'I think I learned something.'
- Blurbers
- Breen, Jon L.
- Original language*
- englanti
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Reviews
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 33
- ASINs
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