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Title details for The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter - Wait list

The Wench is Dead

by Colin Dexter
Samuel West
Audiobook
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 3 weeks
Place a hold Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 3 weeks

The Wench is Dead is the eighth novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series featuring Inspector Morse.
That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre-skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse's muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks . . .
The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859.
At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse – though very much alive – was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.
As Morse begins his recovery he comes across an account of the investigation and the trial that followed Joanna Franks' death . . . and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent . . .
The Wench is Dead is followed by the ninth Inspector Morse book, The Jewel That Was Ours.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Inspector Morse

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 14, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781509865345
      • File size: 165204 KB
      • Duration: 05:44:10

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It is generally true that authors do not make the best narrators for their own works. There are exceptions, with Dexter being a great exception. However, knowledge of both Morse and Dexter would enhance the listening experience since Dexter brings so much of himself to his splendid creation. Morse is in the hospital when he, by chance, encounters a booklet about a murder in the Oxford Canal. He brilliantly unravels the 150-year-old mystery from his hospital bed with the assistance of hospital staff, patients, visitors and the ever faithful Lewis. Dexter's timing, pronunciation and pace are the result of the author-narrator reading. This story, given its style, could have lacked dimension but Dexter's wit and knowledge of his work keep the tale as lively and involving as any present-day, action-packed mystery. S.G.B. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 1990
      Fans will not be disappointed in the reappearance of the irascible yet loveable Inspector Morse, the Oxford policeman who investigates the underside of his beautiful city. This time Dexter employs his lucid prose to describe a century-old murder on the meandering Oxford canal, a case chanced upon by Morse in his reading while hospitalized for an ulcer. Inevitably, there will be comparisons with Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time , in which her sleuth simultaneously convalesces and cogitates upon Richard III, accused of the murder of his two nephews. Dexter's tale is the better of the two. The interior narrative, that of a fetching young woman who meets death during a night-shrouded canal voyage, is placed in a contemporary story in which Morse engages in marvelous repartee with his loyal Sergeant Lewis, with a winsome female librarian and with others who aid him in researching the crime. A surprising and inspired solution concludes a jolly good read that juxtaposes past and present Oxford with imagination and finesse. A new series of Inspector Morse mysteries is airing on PBS. 20,000 first printing; Mystery Guild alternate.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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