Last Seen Wearing (An Inspector Morse Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Very clever, very funny, an excellent leisure reading
Review: If you are tired of American detective stories that contain so much violence and gore, you will find this British detective story very refreshing. The characters Morse and his side-kick are so well written, so real that they almost jumped out of the pages. It doesn't matter even if this is the first Morse story you read. Morse, unlike some of the "supercop" characters in American novels, uses his wit instead of muscle, logic instead of guns to solve crimes. His personality is less than perfect, he makes mistakes from time to time, but that's exactly what makes his character so likeable and so believable. Ah, and he's got that British sense of humor too! I have to tip my hat to Dexter for his such fine writing and I'll certainly look for more of his books. If you like clever, entertaining detective stories, you will like this one. If you want to learn how to write good detective stories, you will need this one. If you enjoy British humor, don't miss this one!

Rating:
Summary: A confusing mess
Review: This book seemed promising at first, but got worse as the chapters went by. A poorly constructed plot with bland characters made it hard to stay interested. The seperate parts were not well connected, and it was hard to lose interest. Even the mystery was not intriguing, and hardly made me want to find out what happened. There was no action, and it mostly consisted of interveiws and dialogue with no real point. However, there were some clever lines that showed Colin Dexter has some talent. This was my first book by this author, and it will probably be my last.

Rating:
Summary: Dexter is a master craftsman!
Review: This is a very intelligent book, and in it we see a very vulnerable, although still brilliant Morse. Dexter writes in such a way that we're there every step of the way with Morse as he stumbles his way around trying to solve a very confusing, old disappearance case. It is done so well, that as we read and see through Morse's eyes, the tension keeps on building and building. We begin to wonder why we can't figure out what happened to Valerie Taylor either. As well done as the televisin series is, and I have seen this story enacted, it cannot come close to the intricasies of the plot in this particular book. One of the best examples I've seen of plot and character development done in the mystery genre.