Inspector Morse: The Complete Reading Guide

Last Bus to Woodstock

Dexter's 1975 debut, introducing Morse and Lewis through the murder of a young woman found in a Woodstock pub car park.

Last Seen Wearing

Morse reopens a two-year-old missing-persons case after a new letter surfaces in the vanished schoolgirl's handwriting.

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

A deaf examinations officer is found poisoned, drawing Morse into a case tangled with leaked exam papers and private affairs.

Service of All the Dead

A churchwarden's murder pulls Morse into the closed, watchful world of an Oxford parish.

The Dead of Jericho

A woman Morse has personal feelings for is found dead in an apparent suicide he refuses to accept at face value.

The Riddle of the Third Mile

A missing Oxford don and a badly mutilated body force Morse to question exactly whose remains he's looking at.

The Secret of Annexe 3

A New Year's Eve murder at a hotel leaves Morse trying to identify a victim nobody can quite place.

The Wench Is Dead

Hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, Morse investigates a 130-year-old canal murder from his sickbed. Won the CWA Gold Dagger.

The Jewel That Was Ours

A stolen Saxon jewel and a tour group visiting Oxford give Morse a puzzle with an unusually international cast of suspects.

The Way Through the Woods

A year-old missing-persons case reopens through competing theories about what really happened to a vanished woman.

The Daughters of Cain

A retired Oxford don's murder draws Morse into a case with roots that reach back through several intertwined families.

Death Is Now My Neighbour

A shooting next door to Morse's own flat becomes personal, and reveals more about the detective himself than any case before it.

The Remorseful Day

Dexter's final Morse novel, closing out the series and its detective for good.

Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

A collection of Dexter's shorter Morse fiction, sitting alongside the thirteen main novels.