''Pictures of Perfection'' is a

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

crime novel by

Reginald Hill Reginald Charles Hill FRSL (3 April 193612 January 2012) was an English crime writer and the winner in 1995 of the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement. Biography Hill was born to a "very ordinary" family ...

, and part of the

Dalziel and Pascoe Detective Superintendent Andrew "Andy" Dalziel and Detective Sergeant, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe are two fictional Yorkshire detectives featuring in a series of novels by Reginald Hill. Characterisation and style Dalziel is ...

series. The title is a quote from a letter by Jane Austen—"Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked." A quote from Austen's letters is included at the beginning of each chapter, and the story itself makes innumerable references to Austen's novels.

Plot summary

The plot involves a missing constable in the Yorkshire village of Enscombe (which is the name of the estate where Frank Churchill lives in the Austen novel '' Emma''). While investigating the issue, the detectives Peter Pascoe and Edgar Wield become acquainted with the inhabitants of the town, and it becomes clear that there are a great many secrets that are being kept. Most of the characters featured in the novel bear a strong resemblance to a character from one of the novels of Jane Austen. 1994 British novels Novels by Reginald Hill {{1990s-crime-novel-stub