The Remorseful Day / by Colin Dexter

[Kim Allen Scott]

I had put off reading this novel as long as I could, because I know I am going to miss Inspector Morse.  For thirteen novels author Colin Dexter has built up a character that has become as familiar as an old friend to me; the irascible, cantankerous, bilious Endeavour Morse.  Like Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, and other fictional characters that some people confuse with actual persons, Morse is presented in these stories with increasing depth of character, making him (rather than the mystery at hand) the object of interest.  In this last novel, Morse enters into his final illness while reluctantly investigating a cold case with his old sidekick Sergeant Lewis.  The murder of a beautiful married libertine produces three suspects who all end up dead during the course of the inquiry.  Only at the end, when Morse succumbs to a fatal heart attack, does Lewis learn who the real murderer is, and why Morse was so resistant to involving himself in the case.  This is detective fiction at its very best, and I highly recommend it.