Mum's Monday: Morse

WARNING SPOILERS

Colin Dexter wrote 13 Inspector Morse books, from ‘Last Bus to Woodstock’ to Morse’s final case, ‘The Remorseful Day’. These were later turned into a television series where Morse was played by John Thaw.

In the books Morse seems more human, whereas on the TV he is just there to solve the crimes which he does well with the help of his side kick, Sergeant Lewis, played on TV by Kevin Whately. However, with Morse only thinking straight after some pints of beer and hardly eating and Lewis only ever eating egg and chips I wonder how they ever manage to solve the crimes at all, but together they do. There are some controversial parts where Morse has been drinking and then he drives. Nowadays drink driving is frowned upon. However, in some of the later books Lewis, who only drinks orange juice, does most of the driving.

Morse is a workaholic and not very organised in his private life, this becomes apparent when he tries to book a holiday to Greece in the 4th book ‘Service of the Dead’, only to end up not going very far and still works on a case when he is supposed to be on holiday. Lewis has a very understanding wife it seems, as we don’t hear her complain about Lewis being at Morse’s ‘beck and call’ during this case that Morse shouldn’t even be solving.

In the book ‘The Dead of Jericho’, when I started to read it seemed all tied up as a suicide, Morse comes along and with this time, Walters (another police officer) doing most of the investigating it starts to get confusing as they bring in more characters and I am not sure where they all fit in at first, but as always it all gets solved in the end.

In a series of books or on TV, it is not unusual for the main character to become unwell. In ‘The Wench is Dead’ Morse is in hospital and, Morse being Morse, is reading a book on an historic murder case. At the time of the murder they thought they had solved it but Morse found discrepancies and re-solved the case. In this book and as in other books we see Mrs Lewis being a kind and thoughtful character towards Morse, sending in with Lewis goodies for him while he is in hospital. Also it is not unusual for Mrs Lewis to have Morse as a dinner guest on occasion.

Another confusing case but intriguing in its confusion is the book ‘The Jewel That Was Ours’. Laura Stratton and Kemp are both killed. There is a lot going on behind the scenes in this book, we see Lewis take the passports from the American tourists on the coach trip through Oxford, but we don’t find out why or how they help with the 2 cases until the end. This is a complicated case and well interweaved, with all that is happening with all the characters.

There is nothing like ‘twists and turns’ to make yet another case confusing. ‘The Way Through the Woods’ in this one I did wonder why they didn’t search the lake in Blenheim Park, that did seem a logical step to take, but it all becomes clear in the end. This book kept me reading, I didn’t want to put this one down.

In some of the books some of the cases lead to Soho in London, I didn’t think anything of it at first but ‘Death is Now my Neighbour’ is yet another case that leads to Soho. It doesn’t take away from the case or the quality it just seems that the author, Colin Dexter, has homed in on a dark area and where you would expect a shady side of life and is using it to his advantage. Yes, that is fine but to over use, sadly doesn’t show much imagination.

It now turns out Morse has developed Diabetes and with us only ever seeing him order pints of beer and hardly eating, we see him actually order a lasagne meal in this book. Despite this development of Morse condition, he is still able to work out that the murder case, which was a mistaken identity from behind the houses and with the lack of the No. 13 house number, counting from behind and with 2 people looking similar to each other it led to the wrong person being killed. This book made me question whether Owens should have had police protection. It is however, difficult to say and prove he was the actual target all along.

We see in this book Lewis enjoys working with Morse. Morse has built up Lewis to become more confident and he has more self-esteem. Morse is sometimes deemed difficult but if that is what it takes to get the job done, then the seriousness of a murder case cannot be trivialised.

I like how Colin Dexter writes Morse as other characters are seeing him for the first time. In the last book in series ‘The Remorseful Day’ and as in previous books Colin describes Morse as he gets out of a car at a crime scene, but we don’t clearly know it is Morse who has arrived until he comes over and recognises the ‘Scene of Crime Officer’ SOCO. I have never come across this before, where the main character is seen through the eyes of others, this is well done and a unique way of writing the main character into a scene.

With 13 books in the series it is like one big book with lengthy chapters. With some books when I have finished reading them, I miss reading about the characters. Morse is different, it is written so the Morse series comes to its natural end, which left me, the reader, with closure after reading so many books about the same person.

On TV, there has been 2 spin offs ‘Endeavour’ and ‘Lewis’ but there will only ever be one ‘Chief Inspector Morse’.