Month: October 2020

Spare a thought for poor old Lewis!

4:48 PM 13 MAY 2017

5/13 of the mystery novels by Colin Dexter featuring Chief Inspector Morse and this one, published in 1981, was a worthy winner of the CWA Silver Dagger. The book is split into a prologue, four books and an epilogue, but curiously, Morse doesn’t assume the lead of the investigation into the death of a passing female acquaintance until the start of Book 3 and DS Lewis is also belatedly introduced over halfway in. Of course the benefit for Morse is that unfettered by investigative protocols at the outset, he is able to deploy some unconventional tactics and privately question whether the victim had indeed committed suicide. However, we can also see the stabilizing influence of Lewis, keeping his superior grounded and challenging the more fanciful inventions of Morse’s prodigious imagination.

The crime is set in ‘Jericho’ which is apparently a former industrial area of Oxford alongside the canal and though the lack of a reliable provenance for the name is intriguing, I enjoyed the map, which enabled the reader to follow the street and landmark references. We also learned that Morse is now fifty years old, so three years have seemingly passed since the previous novel.Still, it is the contrasts, wealth and poverty, culture and depravity, learned and illiterate, attractive and ugly, which again permeate the characters and present a sometimes sordid display of human behaviour. Meanwhile, the enigma that is Morse, a flawed genius subject to the vagaries of imperfect instincts, is exposed just a little more and the longsuffering Lewis has to bite his tongue in the face of tetchy, diva-like tantrums from his volatile boss.

The plot is deceptively simple, but the clues are deftly assembled and rearranged as Morse veers off on fruitless tangents, only for his hypotheses to be dismantled and constructed anew in the light of changed evidence. Of course, the quaffing of beer remains central to all the meaningful progress in the case, but it is also in these moments, typically shared by Morse and Lewis, that shine a dull light on the burgeoning intimacy of their relationship, such as when Morse asks his sergeant why he calls him ‘sir’.

It’s interesting that in the TV adaptation, it was hard not to be enthralled by the character played by John Thaw. On the page though, it’s equally hard not to find the brilliant Chief Inspector a rather tragic and dislikeable man. Perhaps, It is the presence of Lewis that deliberately keeps Morse honest and anchored among mere mortals, but it is a pretty thankless task!

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Morse on his game…

11:25 PM 7 MAY 2017

Book 4 of 13 in the list of crime novels involving Chief Inspector Morse and a skilfully constructed murder mystery with an unusually high body count. In this volume, Colin Dexter has rather helpfully separated the book into discrete parts and though I’m not always a fan of this practice, in this instance it works rather well. For example, the first part lays out the interconnections between the key characters, all of whom are linked to the Oxford congregation of St Frideswide’s. It means that Morse doesn’t put in an appearance until chapter 6 and the good Chief Inspector is supposed to be on leave. Still, we learn some basic detail, such as Morse is aged 47 and still a bachelor, which may explain his consistent hankering for female company, but not so much why an apparently intelligent detective would again fall for a vulnerable perpetrator of crime (though also a victim of her circumstances) in this latest investigation. I fancy today the IPCC would be all over such dubious behaviour!

Still, the peeling back of the onion described by Dexter, as Morse dissects the complex layers of this case, is deftly managed. Moreover, the conclusion contained in a witness statement is a clever and innovative way to ‘crack the case’, as it corroborates Morse’s deductions. In a humbling admission, the Chief Inspector acknowledges (though only to himself) that his leaning toward the convoluted can mar his ability to see the plainly obvious. Still, it is his cerebral machinations (and frailties) that keep Morse interesting.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

OTT, but Uber Cool!

9:35 PM 30 APRIL 2017

There was a time when Dirk Pitt was one of my favourite fictional heroes and Clive Cussler the master at placing his creation in the most intriguing of plot-lines. Who can forget, “Raise the Titanic” (1976), which brought the world’s attention to the ‘National Underwater & Marine Agency’ (NUMA), led by the phlegmatic Admiral Sandecker and his resourceful, but unruly director of operations. The echoes of James Bond are unmistakable, yet the brand of Dirk Pitt novels has also been synonymous with raucous adventure, just without the accompanying blockbuster movie franchise (a couple of spin-off movies have not remotely done justice to the original Cussler books). Not that comparative failure at the box office should diminish the written word, wherein the author has retained a solid readership.In fact, “Iceberg” (1975) preceded Mr Cussler’s seminal novel and clearly Dirk Pitt and his crew received further polish, but the familiar format is established here.

Based on an unlikely, though plausibly fascinating premise, Cussler nurtures the reader’s curiosity, suspends incredulity and weaves a spectacular tale of against-the-odds triumph of good over evil. The Bond-esque one-liners, the steely-eyed propensity for violence, Pitt’s gritty good looks and predictable womanizing gives a rather dated feel to the macho hero. Still, the OTT, unreal nature of the characters and the plot are perhaps just necessary components of the genre’s worship of unadulterated escapism. Whatever the flaws, it’s a fast-moving yarn that in the past might have been described as ‘swashbuckling’ and the protagonists get the appropriate comeuppance!

Sadly the thrill I experienced following Dirk Pitt as a teenage reader, isn’t so vivid today, but perhaps, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, emotional grip is very much in the mind of the reader. Unlike DP, I have got older!

Rating: 3 out of 5.