The Roar of the Butterflies

Hill shamelessly having a bit of fun making a grab for some of the money that's been flowing into the pockets of writers at the lighter end of the detective market, like Jasper Fforde and Alexander McCall Smith. The choice of Luton must surely be a dig at Fforde's use of Reading.
He's been churning out high-quality detective stories for over forty years, so I imagine this is the sort of thing he can do in his sleep by now. Not much in the way of profound character analysis or detailed modelling of the social and political background, just a good honest blunderer, a few tycoons and some beautiful women. The golf club setting is explicitly tagged for us as an homage to P.G. Wodehouse, and there are quite a few Wodehouse references buried show more here and there in the text.
The sort of book to read with pleasure on a sunny afternoon on the balcony, but probably not a re-reader. show less

The Roar of the Butterflies, by Reginald Hill, is I believe the fifth in his series featuring private detective Joe Sixsmith, but it is the first one of the series that I have read. During an extremely hot Luton summer, Joe is asked by a young, rich golf club member to clear his name - he is suspected of having cheated at golf, a sin that would result in his being expelled from the club despite the fact that, it having been built by his grandfather, the young man has the majority of shares in the club and owns the land on which the golf course was built. As Joe is a balding, portly, middle-aged, middle-class Black man, he expects that other club members won't be fooled by the young man's ruse that he is considering sponsoring Joe for show more the club, but surprisingly everybody he meets there is quite affable. Some of them, however, have more to hide than others, and there are questions about what might become of the land should the young man be moved out of the way.... Since I haven't read the other books in this series, I don't know if I'm missing a lot or a little in terms of the relationships that Joe has with various clearly ongoing characters. As it is, I quite enjoyed the novel; I liked Joe and his friends, and while I guessed the motive of the accusation fairly early on, I didn't guess the perpetrators until nearly the end. If I run across more Joe Sixsmith titles, I will pick them up; so, a mild recommendation from me. show less

Joe Sixsmith, P.I., has been approached by a YFG (Young Fair God) Chris Porphyry, on the recommendation Detective Inspector Willie Woodbine. Chris has a serious problem at Luton's Royal Hoo Golf Club, where he holds, by inheritance, the controlling shares. He wants Joe to carry out an investigation for him at the club, under the pretence of seeking membership.

His investigation at the golf club takes Joe into a level of society that he doesn't often fraternise with. He knows next to nothing about golf and is in almost constant dread that he will have to show off his lack of prowess. The investigation proves to be far more complex than he has anticipated too. A simple matter of cheating is complicated by the black-balling of a local show more magnate who wants to expand his grocery chain in a real estate development bordering the golf club. Nor did Joe anticipate that the case might involve violence against his person, to the point of someone dangling him upside down from his own balcony.

This is the fifth in Reginald Hill's Joe Sixsmith series, the first to make an appearance for 9 years. I haven't read any other Joe Sixsmith titles, although I did recently read a short story that featured him in THERE ARE NO GHOSTS IN THE SOVIET UNION.
Joe Sixsmith has a reputation that says he is easy to under-estimate. That when the pressure's on, he will solve the case through startling intuition.

THE ROAR OF BUTTERFLIES made me feel that I really needed to have read earlier titles in the series to understand Joe's relationship with other characters, but perhaps that would not have helped.
And certainly this is a different style of book to Hill's Dalziel & Pascoe series. In the long run though it does turn out to be a murder mystery with the twists and turns of plot, and interesting characters, that we've come to expect from Hill. It is a lighter book, more a cozy, occasionally flavoured with quirky humour.
The title is a bit obscure, although the reader is given the meaning of the phrase quite early on. But at the end I wasn't sure that it was a good fit for this book. show less

For me, this was an enjoyable light read, which might seem a strange thing to say about a book in which the principal character twice finds himself being dangled by the legs from his seventh floor balcony! After reading so many books recently that have annoyed me with their casual preference for strong language, this one made a pleasant change.

What we have here is a mixed blessing. On the plus side there is the lead character of Joe Sixsmith,who is a rather different sort of Private Eye than the norm and quite an appealing individual. He lives and works in the less than exotic location of Luton,UK.which again is a plus as you will see if you read this.
On the other side of the coin is the fact that the book centers on the game of Golf,a sport that,I suspect is less than interesting to most of us.
The title is a rather good one and comes courtesy of the late and great P.G.Wodehouse.

A very light book by Hill. I don't think he has ever set foot in Luton, and the ending is silly, but enjoyable for its hapless detective, and nice not to have another Dalziel and Pascoe episode. Those are getting really dark.

I enjoyed this once I got into it. It was quite different than I expected, fun though.