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****

A bit of an insipid short story book where Inspector Morse only appears a in a couple of the tales. Ironically, the best is not ‘Morse’s Greatest Mystery’ the Sherlock Holmes one, as it happens to be quite Conan Doyle-esque.I wish I had said goodbye to Morse in a more grandiose way. I adore the characters and also Oxford but in this book he (and specially Lewis) becomes a cliché. Not much else to say.

AS GOOD AS GOLD

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
(Hebrews, ch. 11, v. 1)
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AS GOOD AS GOLD

“Honour rooted in Dishonour stood,
And Faith, unfaithful, kept him falsely true.”
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AS GOOD AS GOLD

High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, ‘high definition.’
(Marshal McLuhan, Understanding Media)
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THE INSIDE STORY

Reflections on Inspiration and Creativity, by Diogenes Small (Macmillan, £14.99).
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THE INSIDE STORY

Yet always it is those fictional addenda which will effect the true alchemy.
(Diogenes Small, Reflections on Inspiration and Creativity)
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THE INSIDE STORY

I hate all cats but especially this cat, which occasionally looked at me in a mysterious knowing aristocratic potentially ferocious manner
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MONTY’S REVOLVER

Women sometimes forgive those who force an opportunity, never those who miss it.
(Talleyrand)
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On a walk in Motherwell one Saturday. morning, Neil and I decided to read this book together, aloud. When we began, I noticed something about its rhythm did something peculiar to me. Perhaps because of its intricacy, Neil decided he did not want to read it aloud anymore and I continued on my own. I am so glad I did. What happens in the middle of this book, that long chapter of the Donner party, is one of the best prose I have ever read and, if course, anchors what is to come after.

There is so much in To the Lighthouse, so many amazing revelations, all treated not only with words (which are not particularly difficult or strange) but with cadence, with musicality, with rhythm. So much beauty, so many insights into thought, emotion, character … Those square brackets are to die for and, of course, there is the trademark jumps and changes in the narrative, gentle, easeful, as if the reader was breath entering different bodies. I have never read anything like it. I adored it.

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****

And just like that, I finished the 13 novels of Inspector Morse … I am sad to leave one of the best characters I have ever encountered in crime fiction. Luckily for me, I will ease off with the short stories, Morse’s Greatest Mysteries.

Death is Now my Neighbour has its problems, but is as solid as The Jewel That Was Ours, although the denouement is a little more far fetched, I think. For once, Morse seems to have some success in love and it is in this book that his christian name gets revealed. this made it a nice way to finish the series, a little better than with the breath-stopping The Remorseful Day. I prefer to remember him in a luxury hotel in Bath, writing that postcard to Lewis…

I will miss the epigraphs too, many of which are below.

It is the very temple of discomfort.
—JOHN RUSKIN, The Seven Lamps of Architecture—referring to the building of a railway station
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Mrs. Lewis was a big fan of Agatha Christie, and he’d often promised to take her to Cholsey churchyard where the great crime novelist was buried.
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For example, in such enumerations as “French, German, Italian and Spanish,” the two commas take the place of “ands”; there is no comma after “Italian,” because, with “and,” it would be otiose. There are, however, some who favor putting one there, arguing that, since it may sometimes be needed to avoid any ambiguity, it may as well be used always for the sake of uniformity.
—FOWLER, Modern English Usage
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A Conservative is one who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
—AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil’s Dictionary
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Morse nodded. “And one final thing, please. My sergeant found some French letters—”

“French letters? How old are you, Chief Inspector? Condoms, for heaven’s sake.”
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The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
—BERNARD SHAW, Major Barbara
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Initium est dimidium facti(Once you’ve started, you’re halfway there).
—Latin proverb
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“But, as I say—”
“No ‘buts,’ I’m afraid. Then you might be home Saturday or Sunday.”
“But there’s so much to do!” remonstrated Morse almost desperately.
“Weren’t those the words of Cecil Rhodes?”
“Yes, I think they were.”
“The last words, if I recall aright.”
Morse was silent.
-=-=-=-=-=-

We forget ourselves and our destinies in health; and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals
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Forgive us for loving familiar hymns and religious feelings more than Thee, O Lord.
—From the United Presbyterian Church Litany
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The overworked man who agrees to any division of labor always gets the worst share.
—Hungarian proverb
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Those who are absent, by its means become present: correspondence is the consolation of life.
—VOLTAIRE, Philosophical Dictionary
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The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
—SAMUEL BUTLER, Truth and Convenience
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On Radio Oxford just before Christmas she’d heard P.D. James’s advice to criminal suspects: “Keep it short! Keep it simple! Don’t change a single word unless you have to!”
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Hombre apercebido medio combatido(A man well prepared has already half fought the battle).
—CERVANTES, Don Quixote
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“Is this a question?”
—from an Oxford entrance examination
“If it is, this could be an answer.”
—one candidate’s reply
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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****

I found The Daughters of Cain long and convoluted, as if in reality this book were two novels. Indeed, there are two – tenuously linked – murder mysteries, and the whiff of misogyny is strong, even if domestic abuse makes the crime more understandable. A lot of it is convenient (the brain tumour) and a lot of it is inexplicable (Kevin’s change in character. The consequence of this is that some of the earlier scenes feel retro-fitted. I also don’t buy Inspector Morse’s relation with Kay Ellie. He is a clever man, why would he sabotage himself so much?

Let’s hope I finish the series on a slightly higher note…

Natales grate numeras?
(Do you count your birthdays with gratitude?)
(HORACE, Epistles II)
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I don’t know, do I, Lewis? I didn’t ask. I’m not even quite sure exactly where the womb is. And, come to think of it, I don’t even like the word.’
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for Morse now read its date, ‘MDCCCCLXXXXIII’; and for a few moments he found himself considering whether any other year in the twentieth century—in any century—could command any lengthier designation. Fourteen characters required for ‘1993.’
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For me, Lewis, coincidence in life is wholly unexceptional; the readily predictable norm in life. You know that by now, surely?’
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Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour
(Ecclesiastes, ch .10, v. 1)
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The true index of a man’s character is the health of his wife
(CYRIL CONNOLLY)
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When you live next to the cemetery, you cannot weep for everyone
(Russian proverb)
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Hate is the consequence of fear, we fear something before we hate it. A child who fears becomes an adult who hates
(CYRIL CONNOLLY, The Unquiet Grave)
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Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead
(BENJAMIN FRANKLIN)
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the two young men had also found themselves fellow members of the East Oxford Martial Arts Club.
‘Judo, karate—that sort of thing?’ Lewis, himself a former boxer, was interested.
‘Not so much the physical side of things—that was part of it, of course. But it’s a sort of two-way process, physic and mental; mind and body. Both of us were more interested in the yoga side than anything. You know, “union”—that’s what yoga means, isn’t it?’
Lewis nodded sagely.
‘Then you get into TM, of course.’
‘TM, sir?’
-=-=-=-=-=-

Transcendental Meditation. You know, towards spiritual well-being. You sit and repeat this word to yourself—this “mantra”—and you find yourself feeling good, content . . . happy.
-=-=-=-=-=-

‘I’ll tell you what I can’t stand, sir—the bagpipes.’
Morse smiled. ‘Somebody once said that was his favourite music—the sound of bagpipes slowly fading away into the distance.’
-=-=-=-=-=-

Lewis!’ Morse’s voice was vicious. ‘I appreciate your concern for my health. But never again—never!—lecture me about what I drink. Or if I drink. Or when I drink. Is—that—clear?’
-=-=-=-=-=-

Greatness is but many small littles,’
-=-=-=-=-=-

Women set apart from the rest of their kind by the sign of the murderer—by the mark of Cain.
-=-=-=-=-=-

Electric Spark is so much more than a biography of Muriel Spark. It is structured, narrated and written with a flair than can only be Sparkian. It looks at coincidences, patterns and their beauties. I read it as my breakfast book, in short bursts with my second coffee, savouring each paragraph and allowing it to start my day inspired.

I love Spark’s life story. I enjoyed Martin Stannard’s biography too, but that was more pedestrian, more academic, without the understanding of the person Frances Wilson has. Although I also seem to have given Stannard 5 stars back in 2012 … And The Driver’s Seat (Spark’s favourite novel of hers and ‘a wicked little book’ as referred to by the impeccable artist and writer Sharon Kivland) only 4. It is a 5.

13 April 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of her death. I was already in Scotland, but I did not know her. In those days, sleep was elusive and I used to doze off listening to Book of the Week. Shortly after her death, they read The Finishing School, and I remember thinking, half-dreaming, what a curious novel it was. I ended up giving it 3 stars when I read it; I am too harsh a critic.

I don’t like biographies, as a genre, and from reading this book, I don’t think Spark did either, even though she was a biographer herself (of the Brontë sisters and Mary Shelley among others). Yet, Wilson problematises what she is doing so beautifully, I may need to add it to the list of things I need top revise. This year, another biography will be published: Like a Cat Likes a Bird: the Nine Lives of Muriel Spark by James Bailey. Needless to say, I will get it, will read it, will write about it. But I am already sure it will not compete with Wilson’t masterful account.

I go to the Arlington Baths about once a week, more if I can. Usually this day is Friday, which is a ‘mixed’ day, no Ladies or Gentlemen day. It means I have access to the Turkish suite, where I spend most of my time, laying horizontal, dozing off and reading in silence. I have a locker and this locker contains shower materials, a swimming costume and my Arlington book. David Stuart Davies’ Locked Room Mysteries was perfect for this activity. The choices are varied and the stories are just the right level of engagement for someone that wants to rest and recover. It is not a 5 star book simply because of the fact that I did not like the studies by the big players such as Conan Doyle or Wilkie Collins. Yet, I discovered many interesting writers (Jacques Futrelle!) and rejoiced in the puzzles. I usually finished a story per visit but, when I did not, it was a wonderful incentive to leave the house early so I could continue. I love the genre.

God help me this week when I bring to the Arlington my half-read Crime and Punishment. I am really struggling with that one but maybe the hum of the heaters in the Turkish and the half-dreaming state will propel me through the 350 pages that remain.

I have had Hinduism: A Graphic Guide on my side table for months and have dipped in and out if it. I used to read many of this series when I was new to psychoanalysis and always have enjoyed how they are simple thresholds to further study. This is no exception. the book addresses complex issues such as women in Hinduism, the caste system, the figure of Gandhi and hindutva with some depth, without glossing over (and without resolving) showing how religion is political. My only criticism with these books is that navigation is difficult which might have led to my protracted reading.

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****

I really enjoyed The Jewel that was Ours (finally!). The setting (an American tour, the Ashmolean, the Randolph Hotel) is perfect for a crime novel and the plot – two deaths and a theft – is well outlined and resolved. I really enjoyed the last scene, where Morse reveals what happened. It is surprising and full of changes of heart from this reader. Yet, the final solution made a lot of sense. The topic too is very moving. My only issue with it – with the whole series, really – is the misogyny, again. I mean, see this quote: ‘Six extra personnel: Sergeant Dixon, three detective PCs, and two WPCs for the telephones’. And of course, the character of Sheila Williams, a drunk lose woman, made to look desperate and unhinged … Two to go and I am glad I read the last one before or I would have been in floods of tears at Morse’s demise.

Solvitur atribulando(The problem is solved by walking around)
(Latin proverb)
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“There’s something in one of Kipling’s stories about a fellow who says he knows his soul’s gone rotten because he can’t get drunk any more. You know it?”
Morse nodded. “ ‘Love o’ Women.’ ”
“Yeah! One of the greatest stories of the twentieth century.”
“Nineteenth, I think you’ll find.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Not a literary copper!” She looked down miserably at the table-top; then looked up again as Morse elaborated:
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“It was Mulvaney, wasn’t it? ‘When the liquor does not take hold, the soul of a man is rotten in him.’ Been part of my mental baggage for many a year.”
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“I’d say ‘no,’ my lovely girl. Because if I’m not reasonably careful, if I do have another drink, in fact if I stay a further minute even without another drink—then I shall probably suggest to you that we proceed—don’t forget that we don’t ‘progress’ in the police force, we always ‘proceed’—to, er …” Morse waved a hand vaguely aloft, drained his glass, rose from the settee, and walked to the door.
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Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely being “sent” to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel
(John Ruskin, Modern Painters)
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Her husband! God! A quietly cultivated, top-of-the-head English don, incurably in the grip of the Oxford Disease—that tragic malady which deludes its victims into believing they can never be wrong in any matter of knowledge or opinion.
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Nothing, as both men knew, could be quite as sombre and sickening as a suicide (or, as here, an attempted suicide), for it spoke not only of unbearable suffering but also of a certain misguided fortitude.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Whilst he was gone, Morse turned to the back of The Times and had filled in the whole of the bottom right-hand quarter of the crossword when Lewis returned two minutes later.
“Do you always do crosswords that way round, sir?”
“Uh? Oh, yes! I always try solving problems by starting at the end—never the beginning.”
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Some circumstantial evidence is very strong—as when you find a trout in the milk
(Henry Thoreau, unpublished manuscript)
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Six extra personnel: Sergeant Dixon, three detective PCs, and two WPCs for the telephones.
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And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too
(Thomas Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain”)
Sergeant Lewis had been
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It’s this Roscoe woman. Very able little lady! Did you know that a lot of ’em have been little—these big people: Alexander, Augustus, Attila, Nelson, Napoleon … ”
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Neil gave me The Tremor of Forgery as a Christmas present, mainly because I like Patricia Highsmith but also because this edition had a foreword by Denise Mina, whom I adore. Mina advises to a true Highsmith fan to go off the beaten Ripliad path to find her full potential. She is not wrong. Although I like the comfort of a known character – and Ripley is so well developed – The Tremor is my perfect book: nothing happens, but this is narrated as a page-turner. Spoilers: the narrator, Ingham, maybe murders someone, the six-day war happens nearby but far away, he almost marries the wrong person, a dog disappears and then appears, there is homoerotic tension that turns out to be a really beautiful friendship … All this, while Ingham is working in Tunisia on a novel.

The themes also tie in with my interest in consciousness while traveling in a foreign place. The sun, the sea, the effects of this culture on the traveller are beautifully, and very subtly, portrayed. I loved it.

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 Wench is Dead came highly recommended as it had won various awards. Morse is in hospital and someone gives him a true crime book. Out of boredom, he starts to read it and gets the feeling that those hanged for this crime in the nineteenth century were wrongly convicted. He sets to find out what happened. While it was enjoyable and I greatly admired Dexter’s willingness to innovate and change his narrative pattern (unlike Lee Child) for me, this novel was too close to my beloved Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. If you are going to copy a plot, at least copy the best crime novel as voted by the British Crime Writer’s Association!

Still, More himself was great. I discovered make quirky things about him (synoptic as another favourite word, Bleak House as a favourite book – maybe that will encourage me to finish it). There were may fun epigraph and the resolution was very well conceived if, as always it was drenched with misogyny.

The Greeks had a word for it—parakrousis—the striking of a slightly wrong note in an otherwise tuneful harmony.
-=-=-=-=-=-

What he really needed was to stand that bit further back from the picture to get a more synoptic view of things. ‘Synoptic’ had always been one of Morse’s favourite words.
-=-=-=-=-=-

He remembered when he’d first read Bleak House (still to his mind the greatest novel in the English language) he’d deliberately decelerated his reading as the final pages grew thinner beneath his fingers. Never had he wanted to hang on to a story so much!
-=-=-=-=-=-

All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been, it is all lying in magic preservation in the pages of books
(Thomas Carlyle)
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Magnus Alexander corpora parvus erat (Even Alexander the Great didn’t measure up to the height-requirement of the Police Force)
(Latin Proverb)
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Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it for the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time
(G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Netting Hill)
-=-=-=-=-=-

All right!’ Morse needed no further excuses. Having dipped the thermometer into the water, he’d found the reading a little too cold for any prospect of mixed bathing.
-=-=-=-=-=-

Stet Difficilior Lectio
(Let the more difficult of the readings stand)
(The principle applied commonly by editors faced with
variant readings in ancient manuscripts)
-=-=-=-=-=-

What was the average height of women in the nineteenth century?’
‘Which end of the nineteenth century, Morse?’
‘Let’s say the middle.’
‘Interesting question!’
‘Well?’
‘It varied, I suppose.’
‘Come on!’
‘Poor food, lack of protein—all that sort of stuff. Not very big, most of ’em. Certainly no bigger than the Ripper’s victims in the 1880s: four foot nine, four foot ten, four foot eleven—that sort of height:
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[…] past the North Oxford Conservative Association premises, in which he had never (and would never) set foot; past the Spiritualist Church, in which he had never (as yet) set foot; past the low-roofed Women’s Institute HQ, in which he had once spoken about the virtues of the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme; and finally, turning left, he came into South Parade, just opposite the Post Office—into which he ventured once a year and that to pay the Lancia’s road-tax.
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