Wonderfully Brilliant - Rated 
This is a very welcome return to the Yorkshire Dales and the people - both young and old - who inhabit them. This book is imbued with the love, laughter, hardship, tears and honesty that his previous books have been filled with.
"Mester Phinn" is a very good story-teller and has an easy style about his writing. The love he has for the people and places he writes about is thee for all to see. The characters and characterisations are as colourful and fulsome as in his previous outings.
This book is a wonderful way to spend a pleasant few hours after a hard day at work, or just a good book to become lost in at any time of the day.
The ending has the feeling of the last in the series, although there are one or two 'loose ends' that could do with being tied up in (at least) one more book. I, for one, would be more than happy is another in the series was to come along in the not too distant future.
Finally . . . how about a TV series based on the series. If done properly and with due respect to the books, then it could be a sure-fire winner!!
Very much recommended - to young and old. Guaranteed to have you laughing and crying with the best of them. sometimes at the same time!
Disappointed - Rated 
I've really enjoyed Gervase's four previous books on being a school inspector in the Dales. However, this one left me quite disappointed; perhaps the series has now come to its natural conclusion.
There doesn't seem to be much of a storyline, just some rather disjointed events. There is little character development; we don't really learn anything new about the people we've come to know and love so well in the previous books.
Even though I'm from up t'North, I found the Yorkshire dialect being used much too often; it just became irritating. Also many of the incidents appear too contrived and not plausible. There seems to be more fiction than fact in this account.
Time to give it a rest now Gervase.
Not Quite Up To Scratch - Rated
I have to confess that I was slightly disappointed with this, the latest of Gervase Phinn's books. I have always enjoyed his warm, humorous stories greatly, but found this one a little tired and lacking compared to previous efforts.
Apart from finding quite a lot of the stories rather smutty this time, many of them seemed rather forced too, with several anecdotes seeming to be derived more from email jokes that do the rounds than real life - such as the incident with the turpentine being thrown down the toilet, blowing up the hapless decorator who threw his cigarette into the bowl and was then dropped by the ambulance crew on hearing how the accident happened. I'm afraid too much of this just didn't ring true for me and I got the impression the author was slightly desperate and/or padding out the book somewhat.
I still enjoyed reading the book, as there were some real gems hidden away amongst the "doubtful", padded content. But when previous books have been packed full of such gems, creating a laugh-out-loud and unputdownable standard, this one fell rather short of that mark for me personally.
Back in the Dales - Rated
Gervase Phinn continues to delight in his latest offering The Heart Of The Dales. Still working as a school inspector his tales of the bluntness and honestness of the Yorkshire children will have you once more in stitches, especially when he goes to see a version of the Nativity Play written by the children and performed in Yorkshire dialect, with lines like "Hey up,Joseph". I thoroughly recommend this book.
The heart of the dales - Rated
This is a very entertaining book. I Laughed all the way through it.I have read all of the dales series and they are all as good as each other can,t wait for the next one.keep writing Gervase . If you get the chance to see Mr Phinn doing his theatre tour he is just as funny live.
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