In a twisted case gone cold, an anonymous letter reopens the case of the missing Swedish Maiden case which leads to a decomposed body in a dense wood area. As the body is not the maiden, more questions are raised. Inspector Morse is called off his first vacation to resolve the case. The deeper he delves, the mystery of the maiden deepens. A second murder leads Morse to the killer. ( )

Loved it on the BBC, a bit more obscure in print. ( )

Pretty great Morse mystery. Begins with Morse on vacation and hitting it off with a smarty married lady who has lots of affairs and is rather abrasive. Still... the attraction is strong until it turns out she is a little too wildly friendly and is dropped unceremoniously from Morse and the book (left an odd taste). In any case, the vacation is interrupted by an odd letter to the Times about a year old murder case from back home. Puzzling it out, turns out Morse is put back on the case (!!) and starts chipping away at the sordid affair of the wandering beautiful blonde swedish girl (presumed murdered). Great read! ( )

Obviously I recognise that its impact upon my reading habits is probably not the most significant aspect of the global COVID-19 crisis. It is, however, something that I have not been able to overlook. I realise how crucial my former daily commute, amounting to around an hour each way, not merely offered a nice parcel of time, but also served to frame a valuable daily ritual. Now that I find myself working from home, and living in what almost amounts to a mild form of house arrest, I am missing that regimentation. While I may get out of bed a little later, I seem to start work earlier and then work for longer. Without my day being bookended by my trek in and out of London on the Underground, my reading time seems to have vanished.

I have also found it difficult to concentrate on new books, and seem to be revisiting a lot of former favourites, which has in turn led to some significant reappraisals. In the nature of things, unless moved by some sort of feelings of duty or guilt, one generally only re-reads books that one enjoyed the first time around.

This was one such, and my initial recollection was that it was perhaps the strongest of the Inspector Morse series. Colin Dexter’s career as a novelist followed an unusual path. His early novels were ridiculously overcomplicated and featured a range of two-dimensional characters, peppered with deliberate and irritating flourishes that were there simply to demonstrate how clever Dexter was. Then, five or six books in, he hit a patch of strong, mid-season form, producing three or four novels that were genuinely accomplished, before subsiding into a coda of self-contemplation, culminating with the death of his protagonist.

I still think that this book belongs in that middle phase of well-crafted plots, combining plausible characters and plots, although, like the television series, I fear it has not aged well. First published in 1992, this book won the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger as best crime novel of the year. Nearly thirty years on, most of the crime-fiction reading public has come to expect rather grittier fare. Morse comes across as very irritating and complacent, but that was always part of the point about him as a character.

Of course, I suspect that I am in a minority of not many more than one in expressing what many (including one of my own sisters) will consider to be heretical views. Chief Inspector Morse has become one of the most popular fictional detectives. The original television series ran for several years, and has pawned not one but two equally prolific spin-offs, in [Lewis] and [Endeavour], and the books sold in huge numbers. I would also readily concede that I enjoyed watching the television series at the time. ( )

This series, so skilfully narrated by Samuel West, just gets better and better.

The novels really are "academic" crime fiction. The plots are never straight forward, and the actual plots do differ a little from the television series. And, as I've said before, Morse is a little different in a number of ways from the character that John Thaw created for television.

Morse is presented warts and all, at times adamantly sure he is correct when he is absolutely wrong. He is a womaniser, definitely a bachelor, not particularly healthy.

I remembered the basic plot of this book but that didn't reduce my enjoyment of it.

If you want a reading project for 2020 then you could do worse than reading the Morse series from beginning to end, either in print, or as an audio. I have added the complete list for you at the bottom of this post. My recommendation is to read them in order.

BTW this is the one where Max the pathologist is replaced by Laura Hobson after Max dies from a massive heart attack. ( )