The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter ***

Reading dates: 04–26 March 2025

I read this book while on retreat with Roseann in Purple Valley Tenerife. It was perfect.

I love the character of Morse very much and I love Oxford. I find the repetitive points of these novels endearing but I have to admit the resolutions are not always believable. Maybe there is something to the resolution of a crime, perhaps the mere idea is unsatisfactory. I think more could have been done in The Dead of Jericho with the baddies. Lying and charisma are interesting traits when combined. The crimes themselves are a but wishy washy and the references to Sophocles could not be more forced … But I love Oxford (the quadrangles and the dons, the murder in such an unlikely place), Morse (his love of beer, of words, his humour) and Lewis (his love of egg and chips) and I feel I am a little bit of all three.

For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die
Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol