Saturday, January 26, 2008

On Titles


I'm a fan of mysteries--especially British and Scandinavian ones. (Of the Americans, I do like Sara Paretsky and Laura Lippman.) I especially like listening to mysteries, because I can't race through them as I do when reading.

I have been waiting and waiting for Reginald Hill's Death Comes for the Fat Man to come out on audio and it finally popped up this week. Hooray! (If you haven't read Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series, I highly recommend it.) Only it was under its British title: The Death of Dalziel.

I hate to say it, but this time the Americans got it right. Death Comes for the Fat Man is an infinitely better title than The Death of Dalziel. (Dalziel is the Fat Man of the series--Chief Superintendent to Pascoe, who is the more intellectual of the two detectives.)