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REGINALD HILL
DEATH’S JEST-BOOK
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 2002 by HarperCollins
Copyright © Reginald Hill 2008
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007313204
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007396351
Version: 2015-06-22
For Julia
who never hassles
thanks
The woodcut illustrations which prefigure each of the novel’s thirteen sections are taken from Hans Holbein the Younger’s Dance of Death
For death is more ‘a jest’ than Life, you see Contempt grows quick from familiarity. I owe this wisdom to Anatomy.
T. L. BEDDOES Lines to B.W. Proctor
… fat men can’t write sonnets
T. L. BEDDOES The Bride’s Tragedy l.ii.
Contents
Imagined Scenes
from
AMONG OTHER THINGS:
