Over 13 novels and a popular television series later, Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse has taken his place alongside Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, Philip Marlowe, and a handful of other famous sleuths. Like most of them, Morse possesses an uncanny intelligence, especially in matters of crime and crosswords, but Dexter has always made sure that his detective remains fully a man--flawed and uncertain despite an outward bravado. In this final, difficult story, Morse's humanity unfolds much as his cases do: with the slow revelation of secrets and surprises that frequently catch the reader off guard.

The novel begins with events now a year old. Yvonne Hamilton had been found in her home murdered--handcuffed and naked. The Thames Valley Police had supposed robbery, but their suspects had dissolved and all the leads had dried up. A year later, while Morse is on furlough, two anonymous calls to Chief Superintendent Strange open the possibility of a new line of inquiry. Strange wants his best man on the case. Morse, however, shows a surprising reluctance to embroil himself in what seems to be a classic Morsean puzzle. When he finally does reopen the investigation, his unorthodox approach worries even his longtime sidekick, Sergeant Lewis--who begins to suspect that his boss has a personal connection to the victim. What could Morse be up to? And--as many readers will be asking throughout--what could possibly bring his career to a close?

Like the work of few other mystery writers, Dexter's Morse series has consistently blended the dignity of high art with the grimness of crime and punishment. While it's a cliché to say that he transcends the genre, he has certainly expanded its range to novels that entertain while they instruct--even when that instruction is grammatical. The Remorseful Day is indeed a remorseful farewell, a delicately handled conclusion to a series that will now remain artfully complete, not lingering beyond its time. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
The first Inspector Morse novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, appeared a quarter-century ago. This finale to a grand series presents a moving elegy to one of mystery fiction's most celebrated and popular characters. The murder of nurse Yvonne Harrington two years earlier remains unsolved, but the Oxford police receive an anonymous tip that prompts them to revive their investigation. Morse's superior, Chief Superintendent Strange, wants him to take over the case, but Morse is stubbornly and curiously reluctant to do so. Morse's faithful dogsbody, the long-suffering Sergeant Lewis, is left wondering whether Morse himself is some how connected to the crime, since the inspector had encountered the murder victim during a stay in the hospital. It falls to Lewis to do most of the delving, with Morse prompting him along the way. The case seems impenetrable until the murder of burglar Harry Repp - though what could be the connection to the original murder? Lewis continues to probe while Morse remains his oracular self. Dexter has fashioned another brilliantly intricate puzzle, one of his finest, with the valedictory tone of the highest possible note, perfectly pitched. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Dexter (Death is Now My Neighbor, 1997, etc.) draws a brilliantly realized series to a close by relying on the irascible Morses extraordinary capacity of thinking laterally, vertically, and diagonally. This time, though, Morse seems reluctant to get involved in the unsolved year-old murder of 50-ish promiscuous nurse Yvonne Hamilton. Is it because hes weary and ailing, or because he has a secret vested interest in the naked, handcuffed, gagged victim? When two anonymous phone calls come into the Thames Valley Police station, corpulent Chief Superintendent Strange pulls Morse back from a furlough, along with faithful Sergeant Lewis. Circuitous routes keep Lewis one step behind the curmudgeonly, miserly, oddly vulnerable Morse, but not far enough behind to prevent him from wondering why Morse seems unwilling to take a more active involvement in the case. A bountiful cast of prime suspects is joined by the usual cast of colorful locals, all of them dancing with nervous energy, before guilt brings its own moral retribution. Astute readers who think they have outwitted Morse should wait till the last two pages before congratulating themselves. Morse is laid to rest gracefully, though many a reader will join Lewis in his tearful farewell to one of the most original, endearing, and consistently rewarding detective series. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Fascinating . . . Memorable . . . [A] sweetly rueful conclusion to a revered series."
--The Washington Post Book World

"IMPECCABLY PLOTTED . . . A series that raised the bar for genre writing. Not since Nero Wolfe has a detective of Morse's ratiocinative skills, refined tastes, and tetchy temperament held court in such a magisterial fashion."
--The New York Times Book Review

"THE PLOT IS FLAMBOYANTLY CLEVER: even the most minor characters are bizarre and intriguing. Long after his swan song, Morse will be missed."
--Los Angeles Times


Review
"Fascinating . . . Memorable . . . [A] sweetly rueful conclusion to a revered series."
--The Washington Post Book World

"IMPECCABLY PLOTTED . . . A series that raised the bar for genre writing. Not since Nero Wolfe has a detective of Morse's ratiocinative skills, refined tastes, and tetchy temperament held court in such a magisterial fashion."
--The New York Times Book Review

"THE PLOT IS FLAMBOYANTLY CLEVER: even the most minor characters are bizarre and intriguing. Long after his swan song, Morse will be missed."
--Los Angeles Times


Book Description
For a year, the murder of Mrs. Yvonne Harrison at her home in Oxfordshire had baffled the Thames Valley CID. The manner of her death--her naked handcuffed body left lying in bed--matched her reputation as a women of adventuresome sexual tastes. The case seemed perfect for Inspector Morse. So why has he refused to become involved--even after anonymous hints of new evidence, even after a fresh murder? Sgt. Lewis's loyalty to his infuriating boss slowly turns to deep distress as his own investigations suggest that Mrs. Harrison was no stranger to Morse. Far from it. Never has Morse performed more brilliantly than in this final adventure, whose masterly twists and turns through the shadowy byways of passion grip us to the death. . . .


From the Inside Flap
For a year, the murder of Mrs. Yvonne Harrison at her home in Oxfordshire had baffled the Thames Valley CID. The manner of her death--her naked handcuffed body left lying in bed--matched her reputation as a women of adventuresome sexual tastes. The case seemed perfect for Inspector Morse. So why has he refused to become involved--even after anonymous hints of new evidence, even after a fresh murder? Sgt. Lewis's loyalty to his infuriating boss slowly turns to deep distress as his own investigations suggest that Mrs. Harrison was no stranger to Morse. Far from it. Never has Morse performed more brilliantly than in this final adventure, whose masterly twists and turns through the shadowy byways of passion grip us to the death. . . .


From the Back Cover
"Fascinating . . . Memorable . . . [A] sweetly rueful conclusion to a revered series."
--The Washington Post Book World

"IMPECCABLY PLOTTED . . . A series that raised the bar for genre writing. Not since Nero Wolfe has a detective of Morse's ratiocinative skills, refined tastes, and tetchy temperament held court in such a magisterial fashion."
--The New York Times Book Review

"THE PLOT IS FLAMBOYANTLY CLEVER: even the most minor characters are bizarre and intriguing. Long after his swan song, Morse will be missed."
--Los Angeles Times


About the Author
Colin Dexter lives in Oxford, England. He has won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding achievements in crime literature--the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Edgar Award. This is the thirteenth and final Inspector Morse novel.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

You holy Art, when all my hope is shaken,

And through life's raging tempest I am drawn,

You make my heart with warmest love to waken,

As if into a better world reborn.

(From An Die Musik, translated by Basil Swift)

Apart (of course) from Wagner, apart from Mozart's compositions for the
clarinet, Schubert was one of the select composers who could
occasionally transport him to the frontier of tears. And it was
Schubert's turn in the early evening of Wednesday, July 15, 1998,
when--The Archers over--a bedroom-slippered Chief Inspector Morse was to
be found in his North Oxford bachelor flat, sitting at his ease in Zion
and listening to a Lieder recital on Radio 3, an amply filled tumbler of
pale Glenfiddich beside him. And why not? He was on a few days' furlough
that had so far proved quite unexpectedly pleasurable.

Morse had never enrolled in the itchy-footed regiment of truly
adventurous souls, feeling (as he did) little temptation to explore the
remoter corners even of his native land, and this principally because he
could now imagine few if any places closer to his heart than Oxford--the
city which, though not his natural mother, had for so many years
performed the duties of a loving foster parent. As for foreign travel,
long faded were his boyhood dreams that roamed the sands round
Samarkand; and a lifelong pterophobia still precluded any airline
bookings to Bayreuth, Salzburg, Vienna--the trio of cities he sometimes
thought he ought to see.

Vienna . . .

The city Schubert had so rarely left; the city in which he'd gained so
little recognition; where he'd died of typhoid fever--only thirty-one.

Not much of an innings, was it--thirty-one?

Morse leaned back, listened, and looked semicontentedly through the
french window. In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde had spoken of
that little patch of blue that prisoners call the sky; and Morse now
contemplated that little patch of green that owners of North Oxford
flats are wont to call the garden. Flowers had always meant something to
Morse, even from his schooldays. Yet in truth it was more the
nomenclature of the several species, and their context in the works of
the great poets, that had compelled his imagination: fast-fading
violets, the globed peonies, the fields of asphodel . . . Indeed Morse
was fully aware of the etymology and the mythological associations of
the asphodel, although quite certainly he would never have recognized
one of its kind had it flashed across a Technicolor screen.

It was still true though: as men grew older (so Morse told himself) the
delights of the natural world grew ever more important. Not just the
flowers, either. What about the birds?

Morse had reached the conclusion that if he were to be reincarnated (a
prospect which seemed to him most blessedly remote), he would register
as a part-time Quaker and devote a sizeable quota of his leisure hours
to ornithology. This latter decision was consequent upon his
realization, however late in the day, that life would be significantly
impoverished should the birds no longer sing. And it was for this reason
that, the previous week, he had taken out a year's subscription to
Birdwatching; taken out a copy of the RSPB's Birdwatchers' Guide from
the Summertown Library; and purchased a secondhand pair of 152/1000m
binoculars (#9.90) that he'd spotted in the window of the Oxfam Shop
just down the Banbury Road. And to complete his program he had called in
at the Summertown Pet Store and taken home a small wired cylinder packed
with peanuts--a cylinder now suspended from a branch overhanging his
garden. From the branch overhanging his garden.

He reached for the binoculars now and focused on an interesting specimen
pecking away at the grass below the peanuts: a small bird, with a
greyish crown, dark-brown bars across the dingy russet of its back, and
paler underparts. As he watched, he sought earnestly to memorize this
remarkable bird's characteristics, so as to be able to match its
variegated plumage against the appropriate illustration in the Guide.

Plenty of time for that though.

He leaned back once more and rejoiced in the radiant warmth of
Schwarzkopf's voice, following the English text that lay open on his
lap: "You holy Art, when all my hope is shaken . . ."

When, too, a few moments later, his mood of pleasurable melancholy was
shaken by three confident bursts on a front-door bell that to several of
his neighbors sounded considerably over-decibeled, even for the
hard-of-hearing.

FROM OUR EDITORS

bn.com's Review

It says right on the cover: The final Inspector Morse Novel. Too bad. Over the years, Dexter (and his readers) has had a good time creating one more British eccentric detective. If anything, his Inspector Morse is as mysterious and enigmatic as any of the victims and suspects he encounters.

What Dexter is above all is a damned good writer. He does it all well. Character, place description, atmosphere, plotting -- he rarely goes wrong. Fittingly, The Remorseful Day is one of the best in the series, a sturdy look at the life and death of one Yvonne Harrison whose murder has baffled the police for more than a year. This is the kind of case Morse seems eminently suited for. And yet he refuses to get officially involved in the case (though isn't he putting in a lot of unofficial hours looking into the matter?) and his coworkers want to know why.

Dexter has avoided all the pitfalls of swan songs. It's not sentimental, it doesn't given him awkwardly "big moments" for literary posterity, and it doesn't make him any less enigmatic. Morse, thank God, remains Morse.

Dexter has usually managed to incorporate elements of the thriller, the village mystery, the Golden Age puzzle, and the buddy-comedy (his Sergeant Lewis is a pleasure) into most of his procedurals and he invests his last Morse with all the same pieces and virtues.

There's a genuinely timeless quality about this book. I suspect it'll be read and loved for many years hence. A first-rate last Morse from a skilled and always engaging writer.

--Ed Gorman

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For a year, the murder of Mrs. Yvonne Harrison at her home in Oxfordshire had baffled the Thames Valley CID. The manner of her death—her naked handcuffed body left lying in bed—matched her reputation as a women of adventuresome sexual tastes. The case seemed perfect for Inspector Morse. So why has he refused to become involved—even after anonymous hints of new evidence, even after a fresh murder? Sgt. Lewis's loyalty to his infuriating boss slowly turns to deep distress as his own investigations suggest that Mrs. Harrison was no stranger to Morse. Far from it. Never has Morse performed more brilliantly than in this final adventure, whose masterly twists and turns through the shadowy byways of passion grip us to the death. . . .

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

Not since Nero Wolfe has a detective of Morses's ratiocinative skills, refined tastes and tetchy temperament held court in such magisterial fashion.

Tony Gibbs - Islands

Dexter's portrait of contemporary British suburban society is chillingly evocative, while the case is as complex as any mystery lover could ask for.

Bruce Elliot Tapper - Islands Magazine