Title: The Dead of Jericho

Author: Colin Dexter

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 310

Rating: 7/10

Colin Dexter – The Dead of Jericho

If you’ve ever read a Colin Dexter book before then you should already know what to expect here. Dexter is a competent crime writer, and Inspector Morse has gone down in history as one of literature’s great detectives. I’m not convinced that he’s on a par with Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, but he is still a lot of fun to read. Especially if you’re working on a crime novel of your own, like I am.

In this book, Morse and Lewis get up to their usual tricks, investigating a murder in Oxford. Morse himself had a connection with the victim, albeit a brief one, and she’s not the only corpse to show up throughout the novel.

For me, The Dead of Jericho was a little below par for a Morse novel, although it still holds up its own enough against other crime books on the market. I read it in a couple of days, which is good – I sped through it, but the plot seemed to go in one ear and out the other, and only when Morse explained what had actually happened at the end of the book was I able to totally understand the story line.

So overall, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this book if you’re new to the Inspector Morse series, but if you’ve read one of the books before and you enjoyed it then you’re sure to enjoy this one, too. As for me, I’m planning on reading through each of the books, but I don’t think that the death of Anne Scott will keep me up at night. That said, the victims of a crime novel never seem to stick out to me – it’s usually the living that you remember.

Colin Dexter

Click here to buy The Dead of Jericho.