Chief Inspector Morse is drinking a pint of beer. He is thinking about an attractive woman who lives not far away. The woman he is thinking of is hanging, dead, from the ceiling of her kitchen. On the floor lies a chair, almost two metres away from the woman's feet. Chief Inspector Morse finishes his pint, and orders another. Perhaps he will visit Anne, after all. But he is in no particular hurry. Meanwhile, Anne is still hanging in her kitchen, waiting for the police to come and cut her down. She is in no hurry, either.

`No one constructs a whodunnit with more fiendish skill than Colin Dexter' Guardian

Chief Inspector Morse investigates a long solved Victorian murder from his hospital bed.

'Excellent multi-layered whodunnit' Guardian

`No one constructs a whodunnit with more fiendish skill than Colin Dexter' Guardian

Service of All the Dead is the fourth novel in Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series. The sweet countenance of Reason greeted Morse serenely when he woke, and told him that it would be no bad idea to have a quiet look at the problem itself before galloping off to a solution. In the quiet parish of St Frideswide's, most people could still remember the murder of the churchwarden. A few could still recall the murderer's suicide. Even the police closed the case. But Chief Inspector Morse was alone among the congregation in suspecting that not everything might be so tidily put to rest. And a...

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn is the third novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series. Morse had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements concerning times of death seemed so disconcertingly vague. When the newly-appointed and gifted member of the Oxford Examinations Syndicate is murdered in his north Oxford home, so starts a formidably complicated homicide case for Chief Inspector Morse. For tracking down the killer will involve navigating the insular and labyrinthine world of Oxford colleges . . . The Silent World of...

The first intriguing case that began Colin Dexter’s phenomenally successful Inspector Morse series. ‘Do you think I'm wasting your time, Lewis?’ Lewis was nobody’s fool and was a man of some honesty and integrity. ‘Yes, sir.’ An engaging smile crept across Morse’s mouth. He thought they could get on well together . . . The death of Sylvia Kaye figured dramatically in Thursday afternoon’s edition of the Oxford Mail. By Friday evening, Inspector Morse had informed the nation that the police were looking for a dangerous man. But as the obvious leads fade into twilight and...

Last Seen Wearing is the second Inspector Morse novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series. Why now? Why Friday 12th September – two years, three months and two days after Valerie Taylor had left home to return to afternoon school? He frowned. ‘Something’s turned up, I suppose.’ Strange nodded. ‘Yes.’ After leaving her home in Oxford to return to school in London, seventeen-year-old Valerie Taylor completely vanished. Despite the efforts of the police and Chief Inspector Ainley, the trail went cold and she was never found. Two years on, Ainley is dead, and Inspector...