The Wench is Dead

I approached this one with some trepidation. See, I read all the Morse books several times in my early to mid teens. I remember them quite affectionately in general, as clever, intricate works. But I also remember several really, ummm, dated details. Morse making some important inferences from the colour of victim’s knickers. Morse sussing out that the Rastafarian at college dinner was actually a white man in black face, due to his crucial mistake of eating the pork. And so forth. So, two related grounds for trepidation: what if they don’t deserve the affection in general? And what if there’s a lot more of that kind of thing specifically?

The affection turns out to be justified, more or less. The reservations might stand. This show more novel is kind of the opposite of the Dibdin one just past. Where that was unobtrusively fine, this is both good and irritating in noticeable, showy ways.

Irritating: Morse himself is really quite pervy. He spends most of this one in hospital. Within 35 pages, two different women in the orbit of his ward have been blandly described as “slimly attractive”, and halfway through all the nurses have epithets. Yet somehow, perhaps because he hides his salacious thoughts behind a diffident exterior, all these women end up eating out of the palm of his hand, and one of them at least ends up in his bed (I’ve moved to generics; so far as I remember, this happens in every single Morse book). What’s worse, you don’t get the impression that the author is standing too far behind the character here. After all, who wrote “slimly attractive” twice? There’s a little whiff of wish fulfilment about it all. (interesting question: at what point in this sequence do I stop giving books a partial pass on the basis that those were different times? Tempting to say quite soon, but apparently 1989 really was quite a while ago)

Besides the character, there’s the writing. Now, I’ll come to its good elements in a minute, but my, there are some irritating things about the writing. It’s deliberately, insistently stylish, often in the worst way: packed with literary allusions and alliterations and intrusive authoring (was this once my idea of smart? Oooof). There’s abundant overuse of italics, in a way that seems to belie a little anxiety, either that one’s own sentences don’t direct the emphasis to just the right place on their own, or, instead, that the reader might turn out to be a little slow and thus need a little help in appreciating the sheer quality of the prose. The literary epigraphs prefacing every chapter seal the impression that the author is both very pleased with himself and also trying a little too hard.

Alright, that’s what’s irritating. What’s good? Well, many of the good things are cousins of the bad. For all that Morse is a perv, he’s also a properly drawn character, not just an assembly of traits. For all that the prose is sometimes irritating, it’s also properly stylish, sentences clearly refined, nicely weighted.

Moving to content, the plot is excellently done, executed as a proper puzzle. It’s a very cold case, the murder of a young woman in the 1800s, which Morse pursues from his hospital bed by doing a bunch of reading and getting some of those slimly attractive women to do research for him. This allows Dexter to present subtle clues in the stuff Morse is reading, then alert you that a clue has been presented in the course of Morse’s musings without actually telling you what it is, thus sending you back a couple of pages to work it out. It’s a really neat trick, giving the novel the feel of a crossword (one of Morse’s preoccupations). Morse’s reading also allows Dexter to have fun, and show off, by presenting pastiches of various forms of writing, including stultifying academic prose.

Add a dash of humour that just skirts the right side of inappropriate, and you have a novel that’s fun, whatever its evident flaws. My teenage self was right in this case: this is really well made, clever, enjoyable stuff. show less

Talk about adopting a different conceit! Inspector Morse is hospitalized for a dangerous ulcer, and during his recuperation reads an account of a murder on the Oxford Canal in 1859. Something doesn’t jibe right with the murder record and Inspector Morse sets out to re-investigate the century-old murder from his hospital bed. Oddly this may be the most entertaining and well-written Morse novel I’ve yet read!

“He was somewhat of a loner by temperament – because though never wholly happy when alone he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people.” -p. 154

The 8th book in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series, and in my opinion, the best so far - given that it was the first of the series to be awarded the British Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award, I am clearly not alone in this opinion.

It’s a bit of a departure from the usual Morse novel, in that rather than investigating a recent murder, Morse, while convalescing in hospital, becomes intrigued by the tale of a murder on the Oxford canal 130 years earlier, and, enlisting the help of the ever-faithful Lewis, and the daughter of a fellow patient, who just happens to be a librarian at the Bodleian, sets out to discover more about the case, believing that the wrong people were hanged.

The story unfolds well, Dexter describing show more the processes that Morse’s brain goes through to reach his conclusions, as well as introducing a little more of Morse’s backstory.

One of my only criticisms are the same as for any Morse novel so far - the Morse of the books is in some ways quite an unsavoury character - call me a prude but his obsession with porn is off-putting, and he is such a lecherous old sod. Having said that, he does seem to be reforming slightly on the porn at least; this book was first published when the TV version had run for three series, so perhaps TV Morse was starting to influence book Morse a little.

The other criticism is that Dexter could have at least acknowledged the debt owed to Josephine Tey, whose Daughter of Time used the concept of an invalided detective solving an historical crime some 38 years before Dexter. show less

Morse, hospitalized with an ulcer, diverts himself by investigating an 1860 murder. Lewis and the daughter of one of the other patients do the legwork, and we get to see the evidence pretty much simultaneously with the characters. An interesting book, conceptually; not sure what I think, though, of the mystery. I'm probably convinced that the "murderers" were framed, but less convinced that Morse's version is correct. We've seen him get things wrong before....

The nurses flirt with Morse, Morse flirts with the nurses (and the fellow-patient's daughter). That part's lots of fun. As is the interplay with Lewis.

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Slightly related comment: Some of the Morse books are available as ebooks. Some are only available as paper. This one is show more apparently not available in an American version; I had to buy it from a London bookseller (Blackwells, as it happens). I expect all this can be explained by contractual issues, but it's a mystery. And a pain. show less

The book begins with poor Morse in the hospital suffering from a bleeding ulcer and enlarged liver, the result of all those pints. It's so different from the usual Morse in command; now he's forced to undergo the indignities of the hospital and completely at the mercy of others. He is given a copy of a book detailing the results of the murder of Joanna Franks who had been raped and murdered in 1859. The perpetrators had been arrested and hung. With nothing better to do, Morse reads the book but soon begins to have doubts about the original prosecution. So we have a book within a book. Soon Morse is deep into locating materials from the original investigation.

There are some really charming scenes. Lewis brings Morse a soft-porn novel, show more The Blue Ticket, a paperback with a titillating cover. One night, after waking up following lights out, he notices that the officious nurse who runs the ward is absent, and he turns his light on -- what harm could it do -- to read this little erotic diversion. Nurse "Cratchett" catches him at it, chastises him for turning the light on and then notices the cover of the book.

Needless to say, Morse solves the century-old crime, much to his satisfaction. The usual excellent language is present. Delightful. show less

A good book by Dexter, though certain elements were perhaps done better in the TV episode of this book. Morse solves an 1800s crime from his bed, with all his surliness, lucklessness in love, and erudition.

Morse moves from crosswords to (very) cold cases to exercise his brain whilst in hospital; a little like Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. The mystery is intriguing enough, but the investigation is contrived to say the least - a series of coincidences, from helpful books to surviving clues in half-demolished houses (not least that so many women would find Morse attractive!), fall into Morse's lap whenever he has a 'Eureka!' moment. That said, the story does move ahead in leaps and bounds because of his uncanny luck, and Morse's introspection after a brush with death is alone worth reading. Perhaps a poor introduction to Dexter's novels, but I was hoping that the author had been influenced by the wonderful actors on screen by this point, show more and I would be able to read about the Morse and Lewis I know and love! show less