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Sep 29, 1930 — Mar 21, 2017· 86 yrs

UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · POLICE · FICTION

Colin Dexter

Also known as: COLIN DEXTER, C. Dexter

33
BOOKS
3.8
AVG RATING (23)
1
READERS

British author best known for the Inspector Morse mystery novels. Colin Dexter (born September 29, 1930, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England—died March 21, 2017, Oxford) was a British author who wrote 13 acclaimed mystery novels featuring the erudite and curmudgeonly Chief Inspector Morse; the novels inspired the popular British television series Inspector Morse (1987–2000) and two spin-off series. Dexter earned (1953) a bachelor’s degree and (1958) a master’s degree in classics from Christ’s College, Cambridge. He taught classics at secondary schools until his growing deafness made that impossible, and thereafter (1966–88) he worked at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations, which set examinations for local secondary schools. Dexter began writing his first mystery novel to alleviate boredom on a rainy family vacation in the early 1970s. His novels feature Morse, who is given to theorizing complex solutions to the crimes he has set out to understand, and his more practical and long-suffering partner, Detective Sgt. Lewis. The characters make their first appearance in Last Bus to Woodstock (1975). The crimes in the Inspector Morse novels are convoluted and the plots replete with misdirection.

Stamford, United Kingdom
Wikipedia

It is perhaps unusual to begin a tale of murder with a reminder to the reader of the rules governing conditional sentences in a language that is incontrovertibly dead.

— from Death Is Now My Neighbour

Most acclaimed

#2

The Jewel That Was Ours [Paperback] Colin Dexter

4.5 (2)

He looked overweight around the midriff, though nowhere else, and she wondered whether perhaps he drank too much. He looked weary, as if he had been up most of the night conducting his investigations ...For Oxford, the arrival of twenty-seven American tourists is nothing out of the ordinary ...until one of their number is found dead in Room 310 at the Randolph Hotel. It looks like a sudden - and tragic - accident. Only Chief Inspector Morse appears not to overlook the simultaneous theft of a jewel-encrusted antique from the victim's handbag ...Then, two days later, a naked and battered corpse is dragged from the River Cherwell. A coincidence? Maybe. But this time Morse is determined to prove the link ...

#1

Death Is Now My Neighbour

3.6 (9)

The peaceful quadrangle of Lonsdale College seems remote from the shocks of the outside world - such as the shooting of a young woman in her North Oxford home. But things at Lonsdale are not as tranquil as they appear. The Master of the college is retiring, and two senior dons, Denis Cornford and Julian Storrs, are vying, discreetly but furiously, to succeed him. There are only two people to whom the coveted appointment means more than it does to Cornford and Storrs - their wives. Chief Inspector Morse, investigating the murder on Bloxham Drive, follows a trail that leads first to a tabloid journalist, then to the strip clubs of Soho. It soon winds back, however, to the university. For Morse and his partner, Sergeant Lewis, the question becomes: Is the Mastership of Lonsdale worth killing for?

#3

Classic Detective Stories

0.0 (0)

Edgar Wallace: The green mamba -- Edgar Wallace: The poetical policeman -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The dying detective -- Colin Dexter: The burglar -- G.K. Chesterton: The man in the passage -- C. Day Lewis writing as Nicholas Blake: The assassin's club -- Sax Rohmer: The case of the tragedies of the greek room -- Muriel Spark: Chimes.

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