The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter ***

Reading dates: 3-28 June 2025

I still love the Inspector Morse best as a character, as well as the setting of Oxford, so I got very excited when I found out that The Secret World of Nicholas Quinn was a novel in the context of education (or examinations more like). Finally! But the petty politics of the examination board were not all that exciting, and the characters, in my view, took lines away from my favourite, who does not appear until well into the book. It was ok, but nothing to rave about and the solution is so complicated I hardly managed to follow it. It was confusing to address people by both their names and their roles (secretary, vice-secretary …) and it took me a while to understand who was who. I will read them all, no doubt, but not yet.

Morse realized how he would have hated working under Bartlett, a man for whom the sin against the Holy Ghost was clearly that of leaving filing cabinets unlocked whilst nipping out to pee.