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- The Observer, Sunday 14 December 2008
- The Roar of the Butterflies
- by Reginald Hill
- Harper ,
- £7.99
The fifth novel in Hill's Joe Sixsmith series sees the Luton-based private investigator untangling a conspiracy at the Royal Hoo Golf Course. A leading member has been accused of planting a ball on the course to improve his score - a crime, in golfing, tantamount to a capital offence. Sixsmith must go undercover: a challenging task, not only because he can't play golf but because his class and colour are contrary to membership requirements. It's a tenuous hook for a detective story, but readers who get through the first 200 pages are rewarded with a slightly more savage crime. But while Hill's flourishes of Wodehousian anachronism are appealing, the overall sense is of being mired at the bottom of a muddy sand trap.
