The life of Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter has been celebrated with a cathedral service and civic reception in his hometown of Oxford.
The writer, whose 13 Morse books were set in the city, died last year age 86.
The Very Revd Professor Martyn Percy, who led the service at Christ Church Cathedral, said Colin Dexter was “an iconic figure” in Oxford.
He added it was “absolutely fitting” the cathedral opened its doors for the author’s family and friends.
Mr Dexter wrote the first Morse novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, in 1975. The fictional detective was killed off in the final book, The Remorseful Day, in 1999.
The novels were adapted for the long-running ITV Inspector Morse series and his characters also featured in spin-off shows Lewis and Endeavour.
Crime writer Val McDermid, who attended the service, tweeted that Mr Dexter was a “good friend and the most unassuming of men… and much missed by all his friends and readers”.
Actor Lawrence Fox, who played James Hathaway in Lewis, tweeted he was returning to Oxford “for the first time in a few years to remember the wonderful Colin Dexter”.
Former Oxford City Council leader Bob Price said he had “contributed enormously” to people’s understanding of Oxford and would be “deeply touched” by the service.
He described the author as “mischievous” and “very self-deprecating”.
An entertaining, rugged read which continues to make you root for the odd, damaged and potentially psychopathic slow horses – Margaret von Klemperer reviews Mick Herron’s London Rules.
London Rules is the fifth novel in Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series of spy thrillers, and for anyone keen to read them – and they are great fun – the best place to start would be at the beginning. To be able to follow what is going on, knowledge of the back story is vital.
The slow horses are a bunch of disgraced spies who have been banished to a dismal, semi-derelict building called Slough House in a gloomy part of London. They haven’t done anything bad enough to be completely dismissed from the service, or else the service wants to keep an eye on them, not cut them loose. Their boss is the utterly repulsive and fiendishly clever Jackson Lamb, who once worked as a spy behind the Iron Curtain, and who has enough skeletons in his cupboard to furnish a catacomb.
Britain is being targeted by a series of terror attacks, vicious, not entirely competent and increasingly bizarre. It is not something the slow horses have been asked to help with, but Roddy Ho, possibly the oddest member of their odd crew, seems to be the target of another not entirely competent killer. Inevitably, there is a link.
The cover blurb, from Val McDermid, calls Herron “the John le Carre of our generation”, but he isn’t. His books aren’t driven by the moral indignation that makes Le Carre one of a kind and gives his storytelling a fundamental seriousness. Sure, Herron is scathing about contemporary politicians and politics and the spying establishment, and for anyone who follows the news, there are plenty of recognisable figures in the picture he paints, but the main thrust of Herron’s enterprise is entertainment, not outrage.
The entertainment is of a rugged kind: these books are not for the squeamish, and certainly not for those committed to political correctness, but odd, damaged, and potentially psychopathic as the slow horses are, you can’t help rooting for them. And mysterious and awful as he is, Jackson Lamb’s one redeeming feature is that he watches over his team, and can, more or less, dig them out of any trouble they get into. And trouble follows them, in spades.
If, like me, your taste in fiction runs to the murderous, the annual ‘New Blood’ picks by Val McDermid as part of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate are a highlight of the year.
New Blood is where McDermid unveils her top four debut novelists, and if you’re looking for something new to read it is a great way to find writers who are pushing the boundaries of crime fiction. The authors will take part in a hotly anticipated event at the festival where the genre will be debated and celebrated. Val McDermid said: “Choosing the four debut novels for the New Blood panel at the festival and presenting them to the 700-strong audience is the best job in crime fiction. I get to immerse myself in new voices and fresh ideas. My quartet this year have each produced a provocative and entertaining excursion into their very distinctive worlds. I guarantee each of these books is a riveting read.” The books chosen this year are Will Dean’s Dark Pines about a deaf journalist investigating the case of an eyeless corpse in rural Sweden, Dervla McTiernan’s The Ruin set in the dark heart of Ireland, CJ Tudor’s suspense-filled The Chalk Man, and Stuart Turton bringing time loops, body swaps and a psychopathic footman to the murder mystery with The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle.
Tickets for the festival, which runs from 19-22 July and boasts thriller superstar Lee Child as its programming chair, go on sale this week.
