The Wench is Dead / by Colin Dexter

[Kim Allen Scott]

It is fashionable among academic colleagues to claim one does not watch television, but I think such snobbery sells short the fact that television watching can actually add to one's reading activity.  That has certainly been the case with my own habits after getting hooked on the "Inspector Morse" program.  Morse has a few similarities with Sherlock Holmes; he has no friends other than his partner, he is a substance abuser, and he enjoys classical music.  Unlike Holmes Morse is quite interested in the opposite sex, drives a Jaguar sports car, and often "gets it wrong" when investigating a case.  In this novel Morse's bad habits catch up with him and lands him in the hospital.  While waiting to recover, he reads about a nineteenth century murder case along the Oxford canal and begins a bedridden inquiry with the help of a librarian (always my favorite characters) and his loyal sidekick Sergeant Lewis.  This is the fourth Morse novel I have read and the most unusual.  I highly recommend it.