Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter ***

Reading dates: 1-21 September 2025

Inspector Morse novels in order:

1. Last Bus to Woodstock ****
2. Last Seen Wearing***
3. The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn***
4. Service of All the Dead
5. The Dead of Jericho ***
6. The Riddle of the Third Mile
7. The Secret of Annexe 3
8. The Wench is Dead
9. The Jewel That Was Ours
10. The Way Through the Woods*****
11. The Daughters of Cain
12. Death Is Now My Neighbour
13. The Remorseful Day****

The second in the Morse series was always going to be disappointing after the debut novel. This one is a missing persons case but I feel Morse goes here and there, with speculation and little method and while this is his MO, ot sometimes reads as if he is throwing things and hoping something will stick. Something does stick and it is unsatisfactory because the solution is deal with so perfunctorily. Don’t get me wrong, I like the inventiveness of having it in the middle rather than at the end, even if we don’t then know it is the solution, but the little innovation could be treated with more care. And also women come out pretty dreadfully once again. All the stereotypes: whore (most), mother or nun. Little else and little nuance.

‘Tis a strange thing, Sam, that among us people can’t agree the whole week because they go different ways upon Sundays.
(George Farquhar)

He felt lousy when he woke again at 5.20 p.m., and wondered if he were in the old age of youth or the youth of old age.

The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the one before.
(G. K. Chesterton)