Endeavour and Goodbye to Inspector Morse

I vividly remember watching the first episode of Inspector Morse starring John Thaw as the great Oxford detective and discussing it with a colleague at work the following day. That was The Dead of Jericho, aired in 1987. I really enjoyed it but I never dreamed that the Morse series would keep going, in one guise or another, until 2023. 

Yet that is what happened. Inspector Morse ran until 2000 and although John Thaw died, Lewis, starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox, became a huge hit - contrary, I must admit, to my initial expectations. The strength of the writing, the quality of the characters, the acting, the music, and the production values, coupled with the wonderful Oxford locations, all combined to great effect.

I also had initial doubts about Endeavour, a prequel series starring Shaun Evans as the young Morse and Roger Allam as Inspector Thursday, who doesn't get a mention in the books. Again, the combination of Russell Lewis's skilful screenplays plus all the familiar ingredients and strong period settings made the pilot episode in 2012 a hit. And now it's finally come to an end, in a very enjoyable concluding episode which ties up most if not perhaps all of the loose ends. 

These shows have given me a great deal of pleasure over the last 36 years. Colin Dexter was, of course, thrilled by their enormous success. I have a distinct memory of seeing his first novel for sale in an Oxford bookshop - 'By Local Author' - and nobody paying attention to it, when I was a student. Later, it was a joy to get to know Colin a bit. He wrote a story for one of my anthologies and the last time we met, when he was very frail, he was kind enough to inscribe a copy of a Lewis script for me. Colin loved Oxford, as I do, and the TV series certainly did him and the city of dreaming spires proud.

St Hilda's

The 21st annual Crime and Mystery Week-end at St Hilda's College in Oxford was as enjoyable as ever. The theme, topically, was detective fiction and warfare, and this inspired a wide variety of interesting and informative papers from speakers ranging from Val McDermid, and Jake Kerridge of the Daily Telegraph, to Anne Perry and the conference guest of honour, Peter Robinson. My own contribution focused on the 'Golden Age and the Shadows of War', and I was truly gratified by response to news about the forthcoming publication of The Golden Age of Murder. Champagne was kindly provided by a good friend, and consumed with great appreciation, especially on my part!

The after dinner speakers on Friday and Saturday were, respectively, the legendary Colin Dexter (who mentioned, among many other things, his enthusiasm for John Dickson Carr),, and Keith Miles, better known to some readers as Edward Marston, author of the Railway Detective series. At the top table on Friday evening it was rather wonderful to be in the company of the likes of Colin, Anne, Andrew Taylor, Imogen Robertson, and Alan Bradley, a highly successful author whom I've never met before. Alan is Canadian, but after a spell in Malta, he now lives at Peel on the Isle of Man, an entrancing resort in which I once set a short story, 'Sunset City'.

A week-end like this gives you the chance to make new friends, and also to get to know some people better whom you may have met only fleetingly in the past. The setting gives this event a special character and atmosphere, and I encourage anyone who is interested in in-depth discussion of the genre, coupled with a great deal of conviviality, to consider attending in the future. Great credit is due to the tireless organisers, Eileen Roberts and Kate Charles. The talks themselves are chaired by N.J. Cooper (also know as Natasha Cooper and Daphne Wright), and I can only say that I've attended many different kinds of events in various sectors, but rarely encountered any chair as accomplished. It's a challenging role, because a great deal of concentration is required to do it well, but she makes it all look effortless, and her unfailing generosity makes the task of the speakers so much easier. And that's invaluable, because the audience is very knowledgeable, and all the speakers are naturally anxious to make sure that their talks live up to the standards expected.

I was delighted to share the platform with Ruth Dudley Edwards, who read and commented most helpfully on an early draft of The Golden Age of Murder, and her talk about Northern Ireland and terrorism was spell-binding. On the Sunday morning, Ruth and I went punting with Andrew Taylor (whose brand new book I'm longing to read after hearing him speak about it). Now, I've not been in a punt since I was a student a long, long time ago, but thanks to Andrew's expert steering with the punt pole we managed to avoid the calamity of capsizing that would definitely have ensued had I been left to my own devices. A fun memory of a great week-end.

Endeavour: review

Endeavour, shown this evening on ITV, is a relative rarity in detective fiction, a prequel. You can guess from the title that it concerned the early days of Colin Dexter's much-loved Inspector Morse. We have, of course, seen attempts at the early life of Sherlock Holmes, although as yet we've been spared stories about the youthful exploits of Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple (though, who knows, perhsaps some TV mogul somewhere is even now thinking about suitably inappropriate casting ideas.)

The first question I asked myself before watching was: do we really need a prequel? It is clearly a money-spinner, but does it really add anything to our appreciation of the character? After all, there are plenty of excellent books (and also some written by me!) that it would be good to see on TV, yet which are unlikely to make the small screen any time soon. You can argue that it's a pity that TV companies prefer the safe, the tried and tested, to taking a risk with something unfamiliar. And, joking and personal bias apart, I do think this is a pity. But it's also commercial reality. TV is a business, and the Morse franchise has been hugely successful. Artistically succesful, too. What's more, although I was initially resistant to the concept of Lewis, I've found it so entertaining that I've become a real fan. So I was more than ready to set aside instinctive prejudice against the concept.

My conclusion is that the experiment was definitely worthwhile. Russell Lewis, the scriptwriter, did an extremely good job (again I find myself doing a bit of teeth-gnashing, since although I've never met him, Russell Lewis was once mooted as a prospective scriptwriter for a TV version of the Harry Devlin stories, which more than once were the subject of an options deal that never turned into something that was filmed.) In particular, I liked the nods to the original stories - not just the cameo appearance of Colin Dexter, or the casting of Abigail Thaw, daugher of the irreplaceable John, but various neat bits of scripting. Oxford, of course, remains one of the most photogenic of settings for a classic mystery.

Shaun Evans did a decent job of the very difficult task of playing young Morse. I also very much liked Roger Allam's performance as his boss, Inspector Thursday. As for the whodunit plot, it followed a formula familiar to Morse fans. I shall say no more! But it was entertaining from start to finish.

The big question now is whether Endeavour will prove to be a pilot for a series. I have mixed feelings, for the reasons I've mentioned. But I did enjoy this show, and I certainly wouldn't bet against our seeing more stories about Morse's early career before too long.

One final thought. I remember clearly watching the very first episode of Inspector Morse. Apparently it was back in 1987, four years before I had a mystery of my own published. Talk about time flying...

The Oxford Mysteries

It's been a lousy summer in Britain, but of course there have been some exceptional days, and two of the last three Saturdays have been terrific. Last Saturday I walked in the sun around a relatively unfrequented part of the Lakes - gorgeous. And a fortnight earlier, it was baking hot in Oxford, quite amazingly so for early October, as I set about installing my children and their countless belongings in their college rooms.

Oxford was full of life, and I found myself wondering why it is that fictional death in the city has featured so often when compared to Cambridge. The Oxford crime mystery got going in the 30s, with books like J.C. Masterman's An Oxford Tragedy (a pretty good one I shall talk about in more detail one day). Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin set plenty of stories there, and then in the modern era Colin Dexter made the place his own.

But there have been plenty of other Oxford mysteries. I have in my TBR pile a book called The Body in the Turl, which I really must read now my daughter lives in Turl Street. And I was once responsible for a short story set in 19th century Oxford - 'The Mind of the Master'. Benjamin Jowett was my choice as a legendary armchair detective, and I did contemplate writing a whole series of stories about him. But I've never got round to it. One day, perhaps.

As for the photos, they show some of the views that greet the young Edwardses when they finally get round to opening the curtains in their college rooms. Lucky things.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - Hallowe'en Party

Hallowe’en Party is the latest instalment of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, due to be shown in the UK at 8 p.m. tonight, and as I’ll be away, I’ll be setting my recorder with a view to doing a review soon. For although the original book is one of Agatha’s least impressive, in my opinion, I am told by John Curran that the TV adaptation is excellent. And John, as the author of Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, is a very good judge of these matters.

This brings me to the question of whether TV adaptations can actually improve on the original book. The acting is crucial, of course, and David Suchet is always good value as Poirot. Much also depends on the quality of the screenplay, and Hallowe’en Party is written by Mark Gatiss, whose many credits include Sherlock and Doctor Who, as well as previous Christie stories. He’s a talented writer, to put it mildly, and more respectful, I think, of the source material than some other TV writers. But with Hallowe’en Party, the challenge unquestionably is to improve on the original, since Christie was nearing the end of her life when she wrote it, and I recall my disappointment as a teenager when I read the first edition. It simply wasn’t a good mystery.

Of course, only a major writer is ever likely to have his or her unsuccessful books adapted for TV. With Christie, the name is a brand, an assurance of enjoyable mystification, and such a strong brand that the quality of the original isn’t the key issue. Several of her masterpieces have been butchered by others over the years (The Sittaford Mystery was one of the most dismal recent examples) and so it will be a pleasing irony if Hallowe’en Party proves to be a triumph.

Good as Colin Dexter’s books were, I think the TV versions did improve upon them, and the same is true of some of the later and weaker Sherlock Holmes stories. On the other hand, the consensus seems to be that the first DCI Banks show did not live up to the standard of the books, while Tim Heald, Liza Cody, Marjorie Eccles and Frances Fyfield were not especially well served by the TV versions of their books. It’s all the luck of draw, I guess.

The Living of Jericho

I first read Colin Dexter’s Morse novel The Dead of Jericho in the early 80s, and I remember enjoying the TV version a few years after that. It is classic Dexter – convoluted, yet highly entertaining.

Dexter’s Jericho is an area of Oxford, a short walk from the city centre, yet possessing a distinctive character of its own. My main memory of Jericho from student days is of occasional visits to the cinema there, sometimes to see arty films, sometimes to see something ultra-commercial – the far from sophisticated Death Wish with Charles Bronson being one movie a lot of us trooped out to see!

I revisited Jericho last week-end for the first time in many years. It’s now home to my webmaster, and I was struck by the liveliness of the area – an excellent mix of town and gown. Take Freud, for instance. A cafe bar in a former church that looks like an ancient Roman temple; I’ve not seen anything quite like it. St Barnabas Church is unorthodox and fascinating. And there are some pretty good murals.

All in all, it made me wonder if any crime writer has used Jericho as a setting in the last few years. The vibrant atmosphere of the area makes it a great backdrop for fiction. If nobody else has had a go since Colin Dexter, maybe there’s a gap in the market!

Following the Detectives in Oxford

Last week-end I returned to Oxford, subject of the second of my essays for Maxim Jakubowski’s forthcoming book on scenes of crime fiction, Following the Detectives. In the April sunshine, the city of dreaming spires was looking at its photogenic best.

One of the most intriguing developments in Oxford’s recent past is the transformation of the city prison into a luxury hotel. It featured in an episode of Lewis a while back. The castle is also accessible nowadays, and for the first time ever I had lunch there, and also climbed the castle mound, which commands rather good views of the city centre.

Wandering around The Parks, and some of the college quadrangles, I was reminded of the pleasures of watching Inspector Morse, and of course the books of Colin Dexter are extensively referenced in what I wrote for Maxim’s book. There are, however, a good many other writers who have set crime novels or short stories in Oxford. I was even responsible for one of them myself. ‘The Mind of the Master’ is set in 19th century Balliol, and introduces the legendary Master of Balliol, Benjamin Jowett as a a sort of proto-Sherlock Holmes.

Over the week-end there was a folk festival in Oxford, and the city centre was full of Morris dancers. I know of at least one very successful crime writer who is a Morris dancer, and I believe that Morris dancing featured in at least one of the novels written by Gladys Mitchell. It’s a curious English tradition which, to judge from the enthusiasm on display in Oxford last Saturday, is in no danger of dying out. So – who will write the next Morris dancing murder mystery?

Collecting Crime

When I talked to second hand book dealers, while researching background for The Serpent Pool, I was struck by how often they mentioned the fact that decent old books have become increasingly difficult to find. I know of at least one (very good) dealer who has given up selling books simply because he couldn’t find enough items of quality. Where they have all gone to, I don’t know. Hidden in private collections, presumably.

The value of a book is largely determined by its rarity and in particular by its condition, and that of its dust wrapper. The quality of the story, oddly, seems to matter rather less. I suppose this is partly because really notable books will often be printed in such large numbers that there is no great value in any one particular copy. The more obscure the author, the more valuable the book, is a general principle. There are exceptions, though. Very often, the first book of a major writer will only be published with a small, or relatively small, print run. This was true of, say, J.K.Rowling and Ian Rankin.

I’m interested in books with intriguing inscriptions from the author. Partly, I must admit, because I have a half-formed mystery plot floating around my mind that involves such an inscription. One or two inscribed books of my own feature in the Collecting Crime page on my website.

There are a number of inscribed items in James M. Pickard’s catalogue of rare books. Two that caught my eye were co-written paperbacks from 1964, the two volumes that made up Liberal Studies: an outline Course. One of the authors and signatories was one N.C. Dexter. Much better known today as the creator of Inspector Morse…

One place where thankfully there is no shortage of second hand books is Hay-on-Wye. And as I've sorted Blogger out (for the moment, anyway) here are some pictures as promised from my recent trip.

However, given that my resident webmaster and IT guru has just left home to start his university career, it's only a question of time before my attempts to cope with technology are afflicted by various glitches. So apologies in advance for any examples of incompetence....

Colin Dexter

I enjoyed the recently screened ITV3 documentary about Colin Dexter, which featured interviews with plenty of contemporary writers who expressed their enthusiasm for Colin’s work – enthusiasm which I’ve shared since the early days of his career. I remember his first Morse novel coming out while I was a student. If I’d stumped up for a hardback copy, it would have been far better as an investment than my jinxed pension plan.

Colin is an entertaining speaker, and I first heard him at a library event in Liverpool before I was a published writer. I mentioned recently his poignant after dinner speech at St Hilda’s, and he always exudes charm, as well as humour. I cherish a photograph taken outside the Oxford Museum a few years ago, in which a group of writers including Colin, myself and Anne Perry were snapped next to cardboard cut-outs of John Thaw and Kevin Whately – a souvenir of a very enjoyable day.

In the programme, Colin made the point that Morse possesses many of his creator’s characteristics. But the detective’s lack of generosity is something that Colin Dexter does not share. A few years ago, I was working on an anthology to celebrate the CWA’s Golden Jubilee, and I was keen to have a contribution from most of the genre’s luminaries. When I sent a message to Colin, asking if he was willing to come up with a new story, I was truly gratified to receive a phone call at home one Sunday morning, saying that he’d be glad to. And he was as good as his word. The story was called ‘The Double Crossing’ and it appeared in Mysterious Pleasures, which in sales terms is the most successful of the 16 anthologies I've edited.

Oxford and Crime

It’s intriguing that such an apparently civilised place as Oxford should have formed the backdrop to so many murder stories, on the page, and on the screen. I’ve much enjoyed working on a new essay about the city’s murderous heritage. Of course, Colin Dexter is the leading writer of Oxford crime, but there have been many others.

The reason for Oxford’s long-term popularity as a setting for crime fiction s is surely not so much the inherently criminal tendencies of the local population as the enthusiasm of alumni of the University, and others associated with it, and with the city, for writing detective stories. For instance, more than thirty old members of Balliol College alone have published crime fiction.

J.C. Masterman, who later became a notable war-time spymaster, and then Provost of Worcester College, is credited with inaugurating the Oxford whodunit set in academe, in 1933, with An Oxford Tragedy. Soon, there was a flurry of books to delight dons and many others. Michael Innes, who again would become a don, introduced his series policeman John Appleby in Death at the President’s Lodging, set in a fictional university strongly reminiscent of Oxford, and Operation Pax sets key scenes in the Bodleian. Innes’ principal disciple was Edmund Crispin (the pen-name adopted by Bruce Montgomery, whose first detective novel was written while he was still an undergraduate.)

Surely the most famous crime novel set in Oxford appeared just four years after An Oxford Tragedy. Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night,, in which Somerville College (where Sayers read English) is fictionalised as Shrewsbury College, which she locates in Jowett Walk, on Balliol's cricket ground. Ian Morson’s historical Falconer series is set in medieval Oxford, while Veronica Stallwood has written eleven books to date featuring historical novelist Kate Ivory. The late Michael Dibdin wrote a witty stand-alone set in the city, Dirty Tricks – and fascination with the city is not confined to English authors. And even a novelist from Argentina, Guillermo Martinez, got in on the act. He wrote The Oxford Murders, the film of which I covered in a blog post a while back.

Back from Oxford

On a sunny summer day, Oxford is a truly idyllic place, and the St Hilda’s conference was blessed with wonderful weather from Friday to Sunday. I’ve been to the conference(which has been running now for 16 years) a couple of times before, but this was definitely the best yet in my experience. Everything about it seemed right.

I’ll be blogging about it in more detail shortly, but first I want to pay tribute to some of the people who made it such a great event. Eileen Roberts, from St Hilda’s, works closely with Kate Charles to make sure that everyone, from regular attendees to newcomers, feels welcome. And Natasha Cooper (or N.J. Cooper – she assures us that the ‘J’ stands for Jezebel…) was a terrific chairman, who also delivered a marvellous paper, ‘Behind the Mask’, which had a genuine element of poignancy.

Cilla Masters gave a very good after dinner speech on Friday, while the legendary Colin Dexter spoke, again with poignancy, on Saturday evening, a memorable occasion.

I also had a chance to look round the city. Hence the photos of the dreaming spires among other scenes.

Canals and Crime

Yesterday evening we went on a canal cruise that involved a very good dinner, consumed in excellent company that included crime writer Kate Ellis and her husband Roger (picture getting on to the narrow boat). The round trip along the Macclesfield Canal began and ended at Bollington, on the Cheshire side of the border with Derbyshire. There can be few more restful or enjoyable ways to travel.

And yet. Canals have been a scene of fictional crime more often than you might guess. I’ve even been responsible for one short story myself, ‘To Encourage the Others’, which included a canal-side murder.

Philip Scowcroft, an indefatigable researcher and expert on the genre, recently sent me a copy of an article he wrote some years back on the subject of ‘Canals and Waterways in British Crime Fiction’. Classic titles cited include The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, the first great spy story of the last century, and The Pit-Prop Syndicate by the alibi king, Freeman Wills Crofts.

Among the many other titles Philip mentions are Death in Little Venice (2001) by Leo McNair, and Joan Lock’s historical mystery Dead Image, as well as a book I have read, Night’s Black Agents, by the under-rated David Armstrong. The Llangollen Canal features in Andrew Garve’s The Narrow Search, and a fictionalised Stourbridge Navigation in Marjorie Eccles’ Requiem for a Dove. The most famous book in this sub-genre is, though, surely Colin Dexter’s acclaimed The Wench is Dead, which is distantly based on a real-life case.

The Oxford Murders

I’ve always been fascinated by the number of crime stories that are set in Oxford. Many, many more than are set in English cities more obviously associated with real-life crime. When I was a student, I used to haunt the Paperback Bookshop on Broad Street, opposite my college, and I well remember a display of books by a new local author – to which, it has to be said, nobody else seemed to pay a great deal of attention. His name was Colin Dexter and now, of course, he is one of the great names of the genre. Sadly, the Paperback Bookshop is no more, though I did have the very real pleasure of seeing some of my own books on its shelves on my last visit prior to its demise (I prefer not to think that their decision to stock my work was connected with financial calamity!)

On a visit to the city eighteen months ago, I read The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez – even writers from Argentina, it seems, love to use the city as a crime scene - and very much enjoyed it. It’s a literary detective story of considerable appeal. Now I’ve seen the film, which boasts an excellent cast including Elijah Wood as the student (named Martin) at the heart of the story, John Hurt as a mathematician with a philosophical bent who is his hero, Anna Massey as his landlady (and the first murder victim) and Leonor Watling and Julie Cox as the women who fall, more at less at first sight, for lucky old Martin. Jim Carter plays the investigating cop with his usual gusto.

I had mixed feelings about the film. It’s a very difficult book to adapt for the big screen, I think, and although the movie is at times visually stunning, the script is verbose and I wasn’t entirely convinced by some of the acting, which struck me as being at times over-the-top. Worth watching, yes, but a good example of material that suits prose better than a theatrical experience.

St Hilda's

I’m really pleased to have been invited to Oxford, to speak at the St Hilda’s College Crime and Mystery week-end in August. This is an event which I’ve attended two or three times before, although not for a few years. St Hilda's was, until recently, a college exclusively for female students. Val McDermid is an alumna, and in fact she and I were contemporaries at the university, though our paths did not cross until many years later.

My previous visits to the St Hilda's week-end have been pretty memorable – I met Anne Perry and Susanna Gregory here for the first time, for instance, and remember a hugely enjoyable visit to an Inspector Morse exhibition with the likes of Colin Dexter and Andrew Taylor, as well as a delightful lunch with a retired tutor from my old college.

The two principal organisers are Kate Charles, a former chairman of the CWA and a much under-rated writer, and Eileen Roberts, who spent a good many years at St Hilda’s and retains her connection with the event, which is especially popular with American crime fans, as well as members of Mystery Women. It was at St Hilda’s that I was encouraged by those great crime enthusiasts Lizzie Hayes and Ayo Onatade to follow Andrew Taylor’s lead and become an honorary Mystery Woman. Which I remain to this day!

The topic for the week-end (at which the speakers deliver papers with a unifying theme) is ‘the wages of sin’, and in due course I’ll have to think about an interesting way of addressing the subject. Any suggestions of an angle that readers of this blog would find appealing will be gladly received!