Colin Dexter’s first novel introduces us to the magnetic character of Inspector Morse – drinker, opera buff, brilliant mind, and inexplicable seducer of many women, along with his perplexed sidekick Lewis. The plot revolves around two young women who decide to hitch back to the pretty Oxfordshire village of Woodstock – and one ends up dead. Morse must unravel the web that ties to two women together, all the while drinking ale, doing crosswords, and frowning his way around the Oxford setting that is almost the series’ second lead.
You should read it: to see how to set up a wildly popular series and how to create a character so loved he inspired two spin-off TV shows; to admire the spare, ironic prose; to see how to use setting with enormous effect.
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