Colin Dexter

This is the first time in my television and text experience of the 'tec that he has been presented in such a personal and vulnerable way. In this book, Morse falls for a woman, drinks gallons of beer and solves a complex crime quite easily.

This book is set in the centre of Oxford and since I visit Oxford several times a week these days I was wrapped up in that aspect of the story if nothing else. I couldn't always identify where Morse or the action was supposed to be but I keep forgetting to go an look for myself!

The essence of the story is that there are several central characters who are all linked by way of a church in centre of Oxford. The scene gets set and then people start to drop like flies: several murders or apparent suicides dop off the pages and then so does Morse.

It's pretty well typical that cases such as these have been plodding along for a long time until Morse enters the scene and this story is no different. This case has been extant for a while when we enter the scene and within a relatively small block of pages Morse takes over the case; the original 'tec develops an illness and has to stay at home.

Suffice it to say that Morse, "he is very clever", works his way through the evidence and the clues along with his perfect foil, Lewis. Lewis is the affable Plod who comes up with something that Morse can feed off and the case takes on a new spirit.

Morse falls for a woman in this story and he falls for her quite decidedly. He even does the spotty youth thing of just happening to be passing and calling in ... then she turns out to be something different to what she seems. Still, right at the end of the book this part of the stroy takes a twist in this direction that I've not seen in a Morse story before.

The step by step solution of this crime is a good one, too. In terms of the development of a story I think this is the best morse story that I have come across certainly well ahead of The ead of Jericho which I didn't really like.

© Duncan Williamson

18 March 2004

© Webmaster Duncan Williamson 2004