::READERS REVIEWS::

poetry puzzles - A young, beautiful Swedish tourist is reported as missing when she should have been at the home of her relative in Wales. A year later, there is still no trace of her and no report of anyone finding her body, even though the woods where she was last seen, were thoroughly combed by the Thames Valley police. Chief Inspector Morse is only semi enjoying a holiday at the seaside resort of Lyme Regis where he reads a tantalising account in the Times, about the missing tourist, now christened the Swedish Maiden by the press. An anonymous writer has put forward a collection of verses which purport to offer clues to the girl's whereabouts. The subject becomes a matter of huge interest to the general public, with different people all contributing their theories. Morse and Sergeant Lewis plough their way stolidly through the maze of supposed clues to a final solution, with lots of red herrings along the way and even a touch of romance for Morse to brighten his days.

A logical puzzle in the best English mystery tradition - This book has its flaws, but for those who like the English tradition of mystery novels, it's perfect. Inspector Morse is an enigma that grows on us like a new puppy, and he is the perfect vehicle for a labyrinth of clues and intimations leading to a conclusion only an architect of human psychology could create. The writing is crisp and generous with the main characters, although the people who comprise the mysterious events are necessarily given somewhat shorter coverage. All the clues are on the page far before the solution is given. While sometimes it seems as if soap opera narration of the lives of the police takes center stage, it contributes to an understanding of their progress and its hangups, and helps add momentum to a relatively realistic discussion of the plodding process of uncovering clues. Where this book falls down is its uneven dramatic events and its sometimes obvious shifts of narrative to hide vital data, causing a sudden "gotcha" at the end, that's part of the riddle and the joy of seeing this one conclude. I would recommend this to anyone who likes the mind games of British detective authors.

So disappointing! - I have enjoyed the dramatizations of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series, and decided to read the books. Being a bit of a print snob, I assumed that a book is always better than a television adaptation. Now I am not so sure. This detective novel had a fair share of suspense, and I enjoyed the author's deftness at word play. Literary allusions, epigraphs, puzzles and fine quotations abound. If you love Hardy and A.E. Housman, you will feel a kinship with Inspector Morse and his creator. However, in the end the story had nearly enough flaws to make me feel that I had wasted my time reading it. There are some good plot twists, but some bad ones too. Minor characters are developed up to a point where they become interesting, and then they drop out of the story as if the author had forgotten they were there. False clues in a mystry are part of the game, but in this case I think there were a few too many. They seemed to clog up the narrative rather than advance it. Of course, it would be wrong to give anything away that would spoil the experience for a potential reader. I'll just say that some of the red herrings were a bit too obvious, and at least one of the big surprises seemed not all that surprising when revealed. The final resolution seemed cobbled together, but that is a fault common to most mystery stories. The fun is in the pursuit-the capture is always a letdown.

A tightly written story that is extremely cunning. - As all the books in this series, this one is extremely well-written. The plot is tight and the mystery will keep you guessing until the end. Dexter's writing and his Morse series are top drawer.In this book we have the mysterious disappearance of a Swedish student. (Quite a beautiful Swedish student to all accounts). Morse is on holiday, but finds that he can't just relax and take time off. His agile brain needs something to work on and the appearance of some strange verses in the Times appear to fit the bill. The verses are a riddle about the Swedish student that disappeared in Oxford about a year ago. These books are so intricately written that it is difficult to write a review without giving away some of the surprises, so I will say no more about it. I will recommend though, that you read this series from the beginning. As good as the television series was, these books should be read in order for us to appreciate fine writing in the detection genre.

one of mystery's great curmudgeons - The history of the mystery is replete with examples of detectives who tread a fine line between the amusingly eccentric and the downright boorish (Sherlock Holmes being the archetype; Poirot, Nero Wolfe, and others following in his footsteps). Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse fits squarely and delightfully in this tradition. If you've never seen the TV series on PBS and A&E, or better yet read one of the books, you're really missing out on something special.

Morse, whose first name wasn't revealed for years, is an Oxford-educated, beer-drinking, Opera-loving, vintage Jaguar-driving, Crossword puzzle maven and also one of the biggest curmudgeons in all of literature. He does not suffer fools gladly, other than his much put upon but continually bemused partner Lewis. His superiors are forced to tolerate his idiosyncrasies and his bibliousness because he also has a uniquely intuitive mind and a knack for solving the most puzzling crimes. In an interesting symbiosis, John Thaw's television portrayal of Morse bled over into the novels and took some of the harsher edges off of the character and Kevin Whatley's Lewis helped to make the character less of a dolt and more of a naïf in the books too.

In this Gold Dagger winning installment in the series, Morse is on an unwelcome holiday when he gets drawn into the case of a year old disappearance of a Swedish girl who is assumed to have been murdered and ditched in the local woods. The largely moribund investigation is reinvigorated when The Times receives a cryptic letter with tantalizing but ambiguous literary clues to the dead girl's whereabouts. As the story unfolds Morse finds himself in the midst of a murder investigation that includes everything from pornography to ornithology. As always, the book offers both a satisfying mystery and the great pleasure of watching Morse and Lewis interact with one another and with suspects, superiors and the various ladies who inevitably tweak Morse's heartstrings.

After a highly successful run of 13 novels, Dexter killed Morse off earlier this year in The Remorseful Day. On the one hand, it's nice to see an author finish a series while he still has his fastball, but Morse and Lewis will be missed. Try one of the books and keep an eye peeled for the show, both are outstanding.

GRADE: A+