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Morse switched on the gramophone to "play", and sought to switch his mind away from all the terrestrial troubles. Sometimes, this way, he almost managed to forget. But not tonight... Anne Scott's address was scribbled on a crumpled note in the pocket of Morse's smartest suit. He turned the corner of Canal Street, Jericho, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 3rd October. He hadn't planned a second visit. But he was back later the same day as the officer in charge of a suicide investigation...… (more)
What I like most about Dexter's characters is that they are not perfect, especially Morse, who can be a bad-tempered misery when he doesn't get enough beer. He is also inclined to jump at solutions before carefully examining the information he possesses. I especially like the way Dexter writes and how he imparts Morse's elite intelligence. In this book, he misses a golden opportunity with a woman as well as a few clues about her death.
It's impossible for me to picture Morse as anyone other than John Thaw. ( )
Not bad for a spot of weekend reading. Dexter has definitely found the voice for his Inspector Morse, and for Lewis, and their conversations are great fun to read. Some detective book fans do not like Morse for his grumpiness, intellectual elitism, and seeming ingratitude. But we see and accept the human flaws that accompany an acclaimed genius mind, or at least a mind that works far differently than most. His love of beer, the female shape, and The Archers anchors him in a world where he would otherwise be adrift. The mystery here is great with many trails and threads. The crux of it falls apart in the post-Internet world, but I love reading about Thatcher's England. The plot is not timeless, but Morse is. ( )
This was a good read! The mood of this is melancholy. Morse leads a life of missed opportunities, as does Ann Scott, the first to die in this novel. But Dexter doesn't wallow in pity. He writes about Scott with compassion, and about Morse in the tolerant way men talk about their lifelong friends. It's clever and rich with many strands of plot. ( )
Non delude, Morse è sempre il solito, molto umano, con tanti difetti, ma un investigatore coi fiocchi. E' davvero bello leggere un poliziesco così lontano dal filone 'polizia scientifica' che impazza negli ultimi anni alla tv, un giallo tutto giocato sui vizi umani, debolezze, virtù, di vittime, colpevoli, ed investigatori. ( )
Found the way that Morse became involved a bit contrived, doubt whether he'd really be allowed to investigate it if he'd known the woman and behaved as he did.
Remembered bits of it from the TV series but couldn't remember how it ended.
Kind of tricky to solve on your own, found it tricky to keep track of what was going on. Liked the map. ( )
Laconic, lonely Inspector Morse of Oxford meets attractive widow/teacher Anne Scott at a party and starts harboring romantic ideas. . . only to learn a few months later that she's hung herself. Or did she? Morse has his suspicions. Unfortunately, the chief suspect has an airtight alibi. Dexter winds up with a puzzle-plot that is too cleverly complicated for its own good. Yet, also once again, his stylish, dark-toned storytelling remains enough reason for Anglophile mystery-fans to want to keep following the existentially acerbic Inspector Morse.
Chapter 5: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation Henry Thoreau
Chapter 6: The fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe Milton, Paradise Lost
Chapter 7: I say, "Banish bridge"; let's find some pleasanter way of being miserable together Don Herold
Chapter 8: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Chapter 9: Suicide is the worst form of murder, because it leaves no opportunity for repentance John Collins
Chapter 10: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting Much Ado about Nothing Act II, scene iii
Chapter 11: He can't write, nor rade [sic] writing from his cradle, please your honour; but he can make his mark equal to another, sir Maria Edgeworth, Love and Law
Chapter 12: Sophocles lived through a cycle of events spatially narrow, no doubt, in the scale of national and global history, but without parallel in intensity of action and emotion From the Introduction to Sophocles, The Theban Plays, Penguin Classics
Chapter 13: Sit Pax in Valle Tamesis Motto of the Thames Valley Police Authority
Chapter 14: Chaos preceded Cosmos, and it is into Chaos without form and void that we have plunged John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu
Chapter 15: Well, time cures hearts of tenderness, and now I can let her go Thomas Hardy, Wessex Heights
Chapter 16: The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
Chapter 17: Go on; I'll follow thee Hamlet, Act I, scene iv
Chapter 18: An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar Mark Twain, Private History of a Campaign that Failed
Chapter 19: Alibi: (L. "alibi," elsewhere); the plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere at the material time Oxford English Dictionary
Chapter 20: Certum est quia impossibile est Tertullian, De Carne Christi
Chapter 21: I have already chose my officer Othello Act I, scene i
Chapter 22: Those milk-paps That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes Timon of Athens Act IV, scene iii
Chapter 23: And he made him a coat of many colours Genesis, xxxvii, 3
Chapter 24: Some falsehood mingles with all truth Longfellow, The Golden Legend
Chapter 25: The life of a man without letters is death Cicero
Chapter 26: Some clues are of the "hidden" variety, where the letters of the word are in front of the solver in the right order D. S. Macnutt, Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword
Chapter 27: The time is out of joint Hamlet Act I, scene v
Chapter 28: If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency Sir Joshua Reynolds
Chapter 29: And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob Genesis, xxv, 28
Chapter 30: An illiterate candidate gives his thoughts. The spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure are chaotic. Examiners should feel no reluctance about giving no marks for such work Extract from Specimen Essays at 16+
Chapter 31: She sat down and wrote on the four pages of a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Chapter 32: A man without an address is a vagabond; a man with two addresses is a libertine G. B. Shaw
Chapter 33: What shall be the maiden's fate? Who shall be the maiden's mate? Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Chapter 34: The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life G. B. Shaw
Chapter 35: Sir: (n.) a word of respect (or disapprobation) used in addressing a man Chambers's Twentieth-Century Dictionary
Chapter 36: A vauntour and a lyere, al is one Geoffrey Chaucer, Troylus and Criseyde
Chapter 37: I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Chapter 38: Fingerprints are left at the scenes of crime often enough to put over 10,000 individual prints in the FBI files. Even the craftiest of perpetrators sometimes forget to wipe up everywhere Murder Ink
Chapter 39: The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale A. E. Housman, Last Poems
Dedication
For Patricia and Joan, kindly denizens of Jericho
First words
Not remarkably beautiful, he thought.
Quotations
"Anne wrote - ". "She wrote it there?" "Yes, she wrote it on the sideboard. I remember that she had a silver Parker -".
Last words
But he said nothing; and after eating his meal alone, he found an easy excuse to slip away, and walked home.
ISBN 0751525324 - Amazon has for BOTHThe Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter ANDDoctor Death by Jonathan Kellerman. WorldCat has just for Jonathan Kellerman's novel.
ISBN 0552149519 is for The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Morse switched on the gramophone to "play", and sought to switch his mind away from all the terrestrial troubles. Sometimes, this way, he almost managed to forget. But not tonight... Anne Scott's address was scribbled on a crumpled note in the pocket of Morse's smartest suit. He turned the corner of Canal Street, Jericho, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 3rd October. He hadn't planned a second visit. But he was back later the same day as the officer in charge of a suicide investigation...
It's impossible for me to picture Morse as anyone other than John Thaw. ( )