7.6 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 1993 | 3.8/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Works by Colin Dexter, Police books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories is a book by Colin Dexter. First published in 1993, it is a collection of eleven short stories six of which feature Inspector Morse. The collection was also published under the title As Good as Gold in 1994 as a special paperback edition, commissioned by Kodak.
Contents
Contents
The police are faced with a difficult choice: let a known terrorist walk free for lack of evidence or fabricate the evidence convincingly. Morse decides to take matters into his own hands but things do not turn out as he anticipates.
Money collected for a charity event goes missing in a bar. Morse claims spectacularly that he knows who stole the money and offers a day for the thief to return the money. The story exposes a new side of Morse's character.
Evans is a convict who was involved in two failed breakouts from Oxford prison in the past. Now he wants to take an O-level exam in German. The prison Governor is suspicious. This story does not feature Morse or Lewis but uses some of the minor characters and is set in familiar locations around Oxford.
In an unusual gesture, Morse gives a lift to a neighbour, Philip Wise. Wise tells a tale about a girl called Dodo Whitaker and her brother Ambrose Whitaker whom he met during the war. Now it is up to Morse to find out why the brother and sister disappeared with no word to Philip.
A German professor has his car stolen and then returned with an apology and tickets to the opera. Morse thinks something is fishy and guesses that the professor will be robbed when he attends the opera..
A pastiche of Sherlock Holmes. A well-to-do young lady is stood up at the altar by her bridegroom. Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes and Dr. Watson each analyze the man's mysterious disappearance, with a shocking outcome.
A young woman is stabbed to death in Oxford and Morse and Lewis are investigating the murder. They find out that the woman wrote a short story for a crime fiction contest. Morse finds that she has juxtaposed details of her real life into the short story she wrote.
This is another story without Morse and Lewis. It revolves around an elderly married Oxford professor who falls in love with his secretary and how the secretary's young boyfriend reacts to the affair.
This one does not feature Morse and Lewis. A petty thief/convict steals a truck loaded with expensive carpets and tries to escape to the country. The Oxford police apprehend him but over a confusion of identities, he escapes.
A middle aged businessman books a deluxe room in a 5-star hotel for a rendezvous with his mistress. However, he has a heart attack and dies in the room. The medical and circumstantial evidence seem to indicate no foul play was involved. But Morse is suspicious about the call the professor received just a few minutes before the heart attack.