Norman Colin Dexter (29 September 1930 – 21 March 2017) was an English crime writer known for his '' Inspector Morse'' series of novels, which were written between 1975 and 1999 and adapted as an ITV television series, '' Inspector Morse'', from 1987 to 2000. His characters have spawned a sequel series, '' Lewis'', and a prequel series, ''

Endeavour Endeavour or endeavor may refer to: People Fictional characters * Endeavour Morse, central character of the ''Inspector Morse'' novels by Colin Dexter * Endeavor, the hero name for the character Enji Todoroki from the anime series ''My Hero A ...

''.

Early life and career

Dexter was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, to Alfred and Dorothy Dexter. He had an elder brother, John, a fellow classicist, who taught Classics at The King's School, Peterborough, and a sister, Avril. Alfred ran a small garage and taxi company from premises in Scotgate, Stamford. Dexter was educated at St. John's Infants School, Bluecoat Junior School, from which he gained a scholarship to Stamford School, a boys' public school, where one of his contemporaries was the England international cricket captain and England international rugby player M. J. K. Smith. After leaving school, Dexter completed his national service with the

Royal Corps of Signals The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS or R SIGS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield commun ...

and then read Classics at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1953 and receiving a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 1958. In 1954, Dexter began his teaching career in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area tradi ...

, becoming assistant Classics master at Wyggeston School, Leicester. There he helped the Christian Union school society. However, in 2000 he stated that he shared the same views on politics and religion as Inspector Morse, who was portrayed in the final Morse novel, '' The Remorseful Day'', as an atheist. A post at Loughborough Grammar School followed in 1957 before he took up the position of senior Classics teacher at

Corby Grammar School Corby is a town in North Northamptonshire, England, located north-east of Northampton. From 1974 to 2021, the town served as the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby. At the 2011 Census, the built-up area had a population of ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, in 1959. In 1966, he was forced by the onset of deafness to retire from teaching and took up the post of senior assistant secretary at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

, a job he held until his retirement in 1988. In November 2008, Dexter featured prominently in the BBC programme "How to Solve a Cryptic Crossword" as part of the ''Time Shift'' series, in which he recounted some of the crossword clues solved by Morse.

Writing career

The initial books written by Dexter were general studies textbooks. He began writing mysteries in 1972 during a family holiday. '' Last Bus to Woodstock'' was published in 1975 and introduced the character of Inspector Morse, the irascible detective whose penchants for cryptic crosswords,

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

, cask ale, and music by composer

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

reflected Dexter's own enthusiasms. Dexter's plots used false leads and other red herrings, "presenting Morse, and his readers, with fiendishly difficult puzzles to solve". The success of the 33 two-hour episodes of the ITV television series '' Inspector Morse'', produced between 1987 and 2000, brought further attention to Dexter's writings. The show featured Inspector Morse, played by John Thaw, and his assistant Sergeant Robert Lewis, played by Kevin Whately. In the manner of

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

, Dexter made a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

in almost all episodes. From 2006 to 2015, Morse's assistant Lewis was featured in a 33-episode ITV series titled '' Lewis'' (''Inspector Lewis'' in the United States). Lewis is assisted by DS James Hathaway, played by Laurence Fox. A prequel series, ''

'', features a young Morse and stars Shaun Evans and Roger Allam and began airing on the ITV network in 2012. ''Endeavour'' has aired eight series, including the pilot episode, with the ninth and final series scheduled to air later in 2022, taking young Morse's career into 1972. Dexter was a consultant for both Lewis and the first few years of Endeavour. As with ''Morse'', Dexter occasionally made cameo appearances in both ''Lewis'' and ''Endeavour''. Although Dexter's military service was as a

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

operator in the

, the character was named for his friend Sir Jeremy Morse, a crossword devotee like Dexter. The music for the television series, written by Barrington Pheloung, used a

motif Motif may refer to: General concepts * Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose * Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions * Moti ...

based on the Morse code for Morse's name.

Awards and honours

Dexter received several Crime Writers' Association awards: two Silver Daggers for '' Service of All the Dead'' in 1979 and '' The Dead of Jericho'' in 1981; two Gold Daggers for '' The Wench is Dead'' in 1989 and ''

The Way Through the Woods ''The Way Through the Woods'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the tenth novel in the Inspector Morse series. It received the Gold Dagger Award in 1992. The novel was adapted for television in 1995, as an episode of the ''Inspector Morse'' se ...

'' in 1992; and a Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1997. In 1996, Dexter received a Macavity Award for his short story "Evans Tries an O-Level". In 1980, he was elected a member of the by-invitation-only Detection Club. In 2005 Dexter became a Fellow by Special Election of St Cross College, Oxford. In 2000 Dexter was appointed an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

for services to literature. In 2001 he was awarded the

Freedom of the City The Freedom of the City (or Borough in some parts of the UK) is an honour bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community, or upon a visiting celebrity or dignitary. Arising from the medieval practice of granting respected ...

of Oxford. In September 2011, the University of Lincoln awarded Dexter an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

Personal life

In 1956 he married Dorothy Cooper. They had a daughter, Sally, and a son, Jeremy.

Death

On 21 March 2017 Dexter's publisher, Macmillan, said in a statement "With immense sadness, Macmillan announces the death of Colin Dexter who died peacefully at his home in Oxford this morning."

Bibliography

Inspector Morse novels

# '' Last Bus to Woodstock'' (1975) # '' Last Seen Wearing'' (1976) # '' The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn'' (1977) # '' Service of All the Dead'' (1979) # '' The Dead of Jericho'' (1981) # ''

The Riddle of the Third Mile ''The Riddle of the Third Mile'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the sixth novel in Inspector Morse series. Plot summary The novel is divided into three books - the first mile, the second mile and the third mile. The title is a referenc ...

'' (1983) # ''

The Secret of Annexe 3 ''The Secret of Annexe 3'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the seventh novel in Inspector Morse Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, GM, is the eponymous fictional character in the series of detective novels by British author Colin ...

'' (1986) # '' The Wench is Dead'' (1989) # '' The Jewel That Was Ours'' (1991) # ''

'' (1992) # ''

The Daughters of Cain ''The Daughters of Cain'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter. It is the eleventh novel in the Inspector Morse series. Synopsis The body of Dr Felix McClure, Ancient History don of Wolsey College, Oxford, is found in his flat. A brutal murder – ...

'' (1994) # ''

Death Is Now My Neighbour ''Death Is Now My Neighbour'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the 12th novel in the Inspector Morse series. Plot summary At 17 Bloxham Drive, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, a pretty 29-year-old physiotherapist named Rachel James is shot almost point ...

'' (1996) # '' The Remorseful Day'' (1999)

Novellas and short story collections

* ''The Inside Story'' (1993) * ''Neighbourhood Watch'' (1993) * ''

Morse's Greatest Mystery ''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. In 1996, Dexter received a Macavity Award for Best Mystery Short ...

'' (1993); also published as ''As Good as Gold'' *# "As Good as Gold" (Morse) *# "Morse's Greatest Mystery" (Morse) *# "Evans Tries an O-Level" *# "Dead as a Dodo" (Morse) *# "At the Lulu-Bar Motel" *# "Neighbourhood Watch" (Morse) *# "A Case of Mis-Identity" (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche) *# "The Inside Story" (Morse) *# "Monty's Revolver" *# "The Carpet-Bagger" *# "Last Call" (Morse)

Uncollected short stories

* "The Burglar" in ''You,

The Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first publ ...

'' (1994) * "The Double Crossing" in ''Mysterious Pleasures'' (2003) * "Between the Lines" in ''The Detection Collection'' (2005) * "The Case of the Curious Quorum" (featuring Inspector Lewis) in ''The Verdict of Us All'' (2006) * "The Other Half" in '' The Strand Magazine'' (February–May 2007) * "Morse and the Mystery of the Drunken Driver" in ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' (December 2008) * "Clued Up" (a 4-page story featuring Lewis and Morse solving a crossword) in ''Cracking Cryptic Crosswords'' (2009) * " Evans Tries an O-Level Exam"(A 8 page story featuring a kleptomaniac boy named Evans)

Other

* Foreword to ''Chambers Crossword Manual'' (2001) * ''Chambers Book of Morse Crosswords'' (2006) * Foreword to ''Oxford: A Cultural and Literary History'' (2007) * ''Cracking Cryptic Crosswords: A Guide to Solving Cryptic Crosswords'' (2010) * Foreword to ''Oxford Through the Lens'' (2016)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dexter, Colin 1930 births 2017 deaths People from Stamford, Lincolnshire People educated at Stamford School Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Cartier Diamond Dagger winners English crime fiction writers English male novelists English mystery writers Detective fiction writers Fellows of St Cross College, Oxford Writers from Oxford Inspector Morse Macavity Award winners Members of the Detection Club Officers of the Order of the British Empire Crossword compilers Royal Corps of Signals soldiers 20th-century British Army personnel