Colin Dexter Books In Order

Last Bus to Woodstock

‘ Morse is the most prickly, conceited, and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot.’

The New York Times Book Review

‘YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW MORSE UNTIL YOU’VE READ

HIM…
. Viewers who have enjoyed British actor John Thaw as Morse in the PBS Mystery! anthology series should welcome the deeper character development in Dexter’s novels.’

Chicago Sun Times

Beautiful Sylvia Kaye and another young woman had been seen hitching a ride not long before Sylvia’s bludgeoned body is found outside a pub in Woodstock, near Oxford. Morse is sure the other hitchhiker can tell him much of what he needs to know. But his confidence is shaken by the cool inscrutability of the girl he’s certain was Sylvia’s companion on that ill fated September evening. Shrewd as Morse is, he’s also distracted by the complex scenarios that the murder set in motion among Sylvia’s girlfriends and their Oxford playmates. To grasp the painful truth, and act upon it, requires from Morse the last atom of his professional discipline.

‘Few novelists write books as intelligent and deliciously frightening as those by Colin Dexter…
. What Mr. Dexter does so well, so brilliantly, is weave a thick, cerebral story chock full of literary references and clever red herrings.’

The Washington Times

‘A MASTERFUL CRIME WRITER WHOM FEW OTHERS MATCH.’

Publishers Weekly

Last Seen Wearing

‘Morse is a thoroughly convincing detective, and a very humane one, too.’ The New York Times Book ReviewValerie Taylor has been missing since she was a sexy seventeen, more than two years ago. Inspector Morse is sure she’s dead. But if she is, who forged the letter to her parents saying ‘I am alright so don’t worry’? Never has a woman provided Morse with such a challenge, for each time the pieces of the jigsaw start falling into place, someone scatters them again. So Valerie remains as tantalizingly elusive as ever. Morse prefers a body a body dead from unnatural causes. And very soon he getsone…
. ‘You don’t really know Morse until you’ve read him…
. Viewers who have enjoyed British actor John Thaw as Morse in the PBS Mystery! anthology series should welcome the deeper character development in Dexter’s novels.’ Chicago Sun Times’Fascinating…
Very satisfying.’ Book Sellers

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

‘ Morse is the most prickly, conceited, and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot.’ The New York Times Book ReviewNicholas Quinn is deaf, so he considers himself lucky to be appointed to the Foreign Examinations Board at Oxford, which designs tests for students of English around the world. But when someone slips cyanide into Nicholas’s sherry, Inspector Morse has a multiple choice murder. Any one of a tight little group of academics could have killed Quinn. Before Morse is done, all their dirty little secrets will be exposed. And a murderer will be cramming for his finals…
. ‘ Dexter is a magician with character, story construction, and the English language…
. Colin Dexter and Morse are treasures of the genre.’ Mystery News’It is a delight to watch this brilliant, quirky man Morse deduce.’ Minneapolis Star & Tribune

Service of All the Dead

‘ MORSE IS THE MOST PRICKLY, CONCEITED, AND GENUINELY BRILLIANT DETECTIVE SINCE HERCULE POIROT.’ The New York Times Book ReviewThis time Inspector Morse brings the imposition on himself. He could have been vacationing in Greece instead of investigating a murder that the police have long since written off. But he finds the crime the brutal killing of a suburban churchwarden fascinating. In fact, he uncovers not one murder but two, for the fatal fall of St. Frideswides vicar from the church tower Morse reckons to be murder as well. And as he digs into the lives and unsanctified lusts of the late vicar’s erring flock, the list of the dead grows longer. Not even the oddly appealing woman he finds scrubbing the church floor can compensate Morse for the trouble he’s let himself in for. So he has another pint, follows his hunches, and sets out to untangle the deadly business of homicide…
. ‘A BRILLIANTLY PLOTTED DETECTIVE STORY.’ Evening Standard London’WILY…
ELEGANT.’ Observer LondonFrom the Paperback edition.

The Dead of Jericho

‘ MORSE IS THE MOST PRICKLY, CONCEITED, AND GENUINELY BRILLIANT DETECTIVE SINCE HERCULE POIROT.’ The New York Times Book ReviewHe meets her at a suburban party. They share a flirtation over their red wine…
and he doesn’t see her again. It’s the old familiar story for Morse. Then one day he just happens to be in Jericho, where Anne Scott lives. Nobody’s home and Morse should know since her door is unlocked and he takes a quick look inside. Only later does Morse learn that the lady was at home, just not alive. The jury’s verdict at the inquest is death by suicide. But that doesn’t sit right with Morse, and he embarks on his own investigation into the tangled private life of a lovely woman, all the while feeling his own remorse of what might have been…
.’You don’t really know Morse until you’ve read him…
. Viewers who have enjoyed British actor John Thaw as Morse in the PBS Mystery! anthology series should welcome the deeper character development in Dexter’s novels.’ Chicago Sun Times’A masterful crime writer whom few others match.’ Publishers Weekly

The Riddle of the Third Mile

‘ Morse is the most prickly, conceited, and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot.’
The New York Times Book Review

Inspector Morse isn’t sure what to make of the truncated body found dumped in the Oxford Canal, but he suspects it may be all that’s left of an elderly Oxford don last seen boarding the London train several days before. Whatever the truth, the inspector knows it won’t be simple it never is. As he retraces Professor Browne Smith’s route through a London netherworld of topless bars and fancy bordellos, his forebodings are fulfilled. The evidence mounts; so do the bodies. So Morse downs another pint, unleashes his pit bull instincts, and solves a mystery that defies all logic.

‘ Dexter is a magician with character, story construction, and the English language…
. Colin Dexter and Morse are treasures of the genre.’
Mystery News

‘It is a delight to watch this brilliant, quirky man deduce.’
Minneapolis Star & Tribune

The Secret of Annexe 3

Morse sought to hide his disappointment. So many people in the Haworth Hotel that fateful evening had been wearing some sort of disguise a change of dress, a change of make up, a change of partner, a change of attitude, a change of life almost; and the man who had died had been the most consummate artist of them all…
Chief Inspector Morse seldom allowed himself to be caught up in New Year celebrations. So the murder inquiry in the festive hotel had a certain appeal. It was a crime worthy of the season. The corpse was still in fancy dress. And hardly a single guest at the Haworth had registered under a genuine name…

The Wench Is Dead

That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse’s muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks…
The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke’s Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5. 30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859. At around 10. 15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse though very much alive was removed to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful. As Morse begins his recovery, he comes across an account of the investigation and the trial that followed Joanna Franks’ death…
and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent…

The Jewel That Was Ours

‘Superbly clue laden…
A complex and satisfying puzzle.’

THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE

The case seems so simple, Inspector Morse deemed it beneath his notice. A wealthy, elderly American tourist has a heart attack in her room at Oxford’s luxurious Randolph Hotel. Missing from the scene is the lady’s handbag, which contained the Wolvercote Tongue, a priceless jewel that her late husband had bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum just across the street. Morse proceeds to spend a great deal of time thinking and drinking in the hotel’s bar, certain the solution is close at hand until conflicting stories, suspicious doings, and a real murder convince him otherwise…
.

‘It is a delight to watch this brilliant, quirky man Morse deduce.’

MINNEAPOLIS STAR & TRIBUNE

The Way Through The Woods

‘Cunning…
Your imagination will be frenetically flapping its wings until the very last chapter.’THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLDMorse is enjoying a rare if unsatisfying holiday in Dorset when the first letter appears in THE TIMES. A year before, a stunning Swedish student disappeared from Oxfordshire, leaving behind a rucksack with her identification. As the lady was dishy, young, and traveling alone, the Thames Valley Police suspected foul play. But without a body, and with precious few clues, the investigation ground to a halt. Now it seems that someone who can hold back no longer is composing clue laden poetry that begins an enthusiastic correspondence among England’s news reading public. Not one to be left behind, Morse writes a letter of his own and follows a twisting path through the Wytham Woods that leads to a most shocking murder.

The Daughters of Cain

‘AUDACIOUS AND AMUSING…
MAY BE THE BEST BOOK YET IN THIS DESERVEDLY CELEBRATED SERIES.’ The Wall Street JournalIt was only the second time Inspector Morse had ever taken over a murder enquiry after the preliminary invariably dramatic discovery and sweep of the crime scene. Secretly pleased to have missed the blood and gore, Morse and the faithful Lewis go about finding the killer who stabbed Dr. Felix McClure, late of Wolsey College. In another part of Oxford, three women a housecleaner, a schoolteacher, and a prostitute are playing out a drama that has long been unfolding. It will take much brain work, many pints, and not a little anguish before Morse sees the startling connections between McClure’s death and The Daughters of Cain…
.’VERY CLEVERLY CONSTRUCTED…
Dexter writes with an urbanity and range of reference that is all his own.’ Los Angeles Times’YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW MORSE UNTIL YOU’VE READ HIM…
. Viewers who have enjoyed British actor John Thaw as Morse in the PBS’Mystery!’ anthology series should welcome the deeper character development in Dexter’s novels.’ Chicago Sun Times’A MASTERFUL CRIME WRITER WHOM FEW OTHERS MATCH.’ Publishers Weekly

Death Is Now My Neighbor

Why would a sniper shoot suburban physiotherapist Rachel James as she sips her morning coffee? Inspector Morse’s hunt for answers kicks off with a tabloid journalist, winds through the strip clubs of Soho, then returns to Oxford, where two senior dons and their wives battle for a plum promotion. Then, on the personal front, Inspector Morse receives intimations of his own mortality.

And while Morse muses on life, he reveals his first name at last…
.

The Remorseful Day

‘Where does all this leave us, sir?”Things are moving fast.”We’re getting near the end, you mean?”We were always near the end.’For a year, the murder of Yvonne Harrison at her home in the Cotswold village of Lower Swinstead has baffled the Thames Valley CID. But one man has yet to tackle the case and it is just the sort of puzzle at which Chief Inspector Morse excels. So why is he adamant that he will not lead the reinvestigation, despite two anonymous phone calls that hint at new evidence? And why, if he refuses to take on the case officially, does he seem to be carrying out his own private inquiries?When Sergeant Lewis learns that Morse was once friendly with Yvonne Harrison, he begins to suspect that the man who has earned his admiration, and exasperation, over so many years knows more about her death than he is letting on. When Morse finally does take over, the investigation leads down highways and byways that are disturbing to all concerned. And then there is that final twist!The Remorseful Day is full of the wonderful, unique touches that characterize Colin Dexter’s novels. There is the brilliant, cranky Morse, the stubborn Sergeant Lewis, determined to best his boss at his own game, and, of course, the lovingly described town of Oxford, where grand colleges and old traditions are confronted by the new and the nasty. And throughout, there is today’s world, as seen by Chief Inspector Morse.

Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

‘DELIGHTFUL.’ The Wall Street JournalIn short mysteries so brilliantly plotted they’ll confound the cleverest of souls, Inspector Morse remains as patient as a cat at a mouse hole in the face of even the most resourceful evildoers. Muldoon, for instance, the one legged bomber with one fatal weakness…
the quartet of lovers whose bizarre entanglements Morse deciphers only after a beautiful woman is murdered…
and those artful dodgers who catch the cunning and very respectful Morse with his pants down. There are mysteries featuring new characters and some familiar ones, including the great Sherlock Holmes, and a royal flush of American crooks. ‘BRILLIANT…
Inspector Morse is back, and more than welcome.’ Houston Chronicle’Fear not. In Dexter’s dexterous hands, the short form Morse is every bit as wily and irascible as he is in the the popular Morse novels and the long running PBS Mystery! series.’ The Raleigh News & Observer

Chambers Morse Crosswords

The passion of Inspector Morse the beer drinking, problem solving Oxford detective for crosswords is well known. But fewer people know that Morse’s creator, the renowned author Colin Dexter, himself set crosswords for The Oxford Times for many years and is a national crossword champion. Here is a collection of his greatest.

The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction

Never before has there been a comprehensive, inexpensive reference guide and overview to the genre of crime fiction like The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Crime Fiction. Veteran editor Mike Ashley’s historical introduction gives an overview of the crime genre, showing the background and development of crime fiction from the earliest days with Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler through to the modern exponents of the craft such as Elmore Leonard and Ian Rankin. His A to Z covers five hundred entries on the major writers in the crime fiction field, from Edward S. Aarons to Mark Zubro, from the cult favorites to the best known, including Marjorie Allingham, Patricia Cornwell, Colin Dexter, Jim Thompson, and Minette Walters. The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Crime Fiction packs more information into its author entries than more expensive hardcover reference works. Each entry gives a brief biographical background with highlights for the cross referenced key works, provides a full bibliography, and notes significant films/series adapted from their works. There are also added bonuses of a crime fiction glossary that defines the genre s special terms and expressions, such as hardboiled, impossible crime, and police procedural and four appendices covering key characters, key books and magazines, key films and TV series, and awards and award winners, including the Edgar Awards, the Dagger Awards, the Shamus Awards, and other important awards. Crime fiction buffs, mystery booksellers, and anyone interested in crime fiction will find The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Crime Fiction to be an indispensable reference and an unbeatable bargain.