Last Seen Wearing

Second Morse. I had read Colin Dexter in the days when his novels were new. After years of TV adaptations of Morse,then Lewis and Endeavor, I thought it time to reread the books to see if my recollection of Dexter's Morse were different from the TV dramas. Last Seen Wearing is a monumental fuck-up on Morse's part. Asked to resolve a missing person case after the lead detective is killed in an automobile accident, Morse starts off with the erroneous assumption the the woman is dead.Lewis is the methodical fact checker, Morse takes flying leaps - this time into fantasyland. While trying to resolve this case, an related murder is committed.He puts the puzzle together just in time to let the missing woman (and murderer) disappear again. And show more he is already drinking too much. show less

I enjoyed this, the second Inspector Morse novel, even a little more than the first. Dexter has a gift for setting several scenarios and suspects in motion, which gives ample room for his protagonist’s equally prodigious gift for getting it wrong time and time again. It was interesting to see how the television adaptation upscaled many of the locales and characters compared to the book. What remains inexplicable to me is the appeal Morse seems to exercise on attractive young women. But the book is, after all, a mystery.

It’s always a pleasure to return to the wonderful stories of Colin Dexter and Inspector Morse, that all too-human English detective who drinks too much and realizes he needs to place his collection of Victorian erotica in a less conspicuous place on his bookshelf.
In this case, Victoria Taylor, an attractive seventeen-year-old disappeared two years ago. Morse is handed the case following the death of Inspector Ainley who had just become interested following receipt of a note that Victoria was alive and did not want to be pursued. Morse is convinced she is dead and that possibly the real killer was sending the notes in hopes the investigation will cease. Lewis, Morse’s sergeant on the case, can’t understand Morse’s obsession with show more the case that Lewis believes is open-and-shut: the girl is alive and well in London and doesn’t want to be found. To his mind, Morse just insists on taking a simple case and making it into a complicated mish-mash.
This case has numerous false leads and Morse swings from a feeling of ecsatitic success at seeming to arrive at the solution only to have his idea dashed to the ground when the evidence fails to support his conclusions. In the end, one of those “false” inspirations proves to be the correct one. The coincidences are seemingly too much for Lewis, but as Morse points out, “It’s an odd coincidence, Lewis, that the forty-sixth word from the beginning and the forty-sixth word from the end of the Forty-sixth Psalm in the Authorised Version should spell ‘Shakespear.’ “ show less

People seem to like Inspector Morse, possibly because of the TV series. I don't find Morse that engaging as a character, there's a lot more interior monologue from him than I'd like, and two of the books had the same plot twist and the third came dangerously close. (Possible spoiler: Morse seems distressingly prone to getting crushes on the murderous women in the books!) If this is a pattern I want none of it.

A man who likes his pints, a total hornball (without even being suave or attractive to women like James Bond), and far from a Sherlock Holmes leaping from wrong conclusion to wrong conclusion (and thinking he’s wrong even when he’s right). Inspector Morse is a great character because he’s so fallibly human. There sure is a lot of sleaziness in Oxford too.

“He musn’t jump to conclusions though. But why the hell not? There was no eleventh commandment against jumping to conclusions, and so he jumped.” (p. 17)

Valerie Taylor went missing 2 years ago. When what purports to be a letter from her arrives, Morse is assigned to re-open the cold case and if possible find her.

Lewis gets increasingly exasperated as Morse leaps from conclusion to conclusion based on little or no evidence. I knew how he felt. It does rather give the impression that Morse eventually stumbles across the truth by sheer chance rather than any powers of ratiocination.

I remain firmly convinced that Dexter would have lapsed into obscurity without the far superior TV adaptations. The Morse of this book is a disagreeable, slightly pervy middle aged man with a crossword obsession - much less appealing to the predominately female fan base of the detective genre than John Thaw's tortured romantic. Positives about the book are its depiction of a rather broader and more realistic Oxford (comprehensives and rubbish dumps didn't feature in the TV adaptation of this one!) and its deft plotting, largely translated without change to the screen.