I was introduced to the sensitive, melancholy, vulnerable yet independent, brusque, and misogynistic Chief Inspector Morse in ‘The Remorseful Day’, in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series.
It was the last book in the series, and Inspector Morse dies from complications of diabetes, aggravated by excessive alcohol consumption. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t quite dislike him in the earlier books, which I read one after another over a couple of months.
Chief Inspector Morse isn’t easy to like. He is an aficionado of philosophy, literature, music (For those things alone, though, you can fall in love with him.), crossword puzzles, perfect grammar, and classic cars. He is an intellectual snob. He is not absolutely brilliant when it comes to solving crimes; he often ends up arresting the wrong person or arriving at the wrong conclusion.
While he is unquestionably fond of Lewis, he frequently snaps at him for little or no reason.
As a person, he is a mess, and so is his personal life. He drinks too much. He cannot maintain a personal relationship. He is self-absorbed, sullen, and moody.
He has many phobias. He is scared of height, dark, flying, and spiders. In the Riddle of the Third Mile, for example, he is afraid of dead bodies. On several occasions in other books, Morse gets sick after looking at the dead bodies of people who died of unnatural causes.
“It is strange to relate (for a man in his profession) that in addition to incurable acrophobia, arachnophobia, myophobia, and ornithophobia, Morse also suffered from necrophobia; and had he known what awaited him now, it is doubtful whether he would have dared to view the horridly disfigured corpse at all.”
― The Riddle of the Third Mile
Whoever has read a book or two of Dexter’s knows of Morse’s love for pornography:
Walters looked quizzically at Morse, who sat reading one of the glossy ‘porno’ magazines he had brought from upstairs.
“You still sex-mad, I see, Morse,” said the surgeon.
“I don’t seem to be able to shake it off, Max.” Morse turned over a page. “And you don’t improve much either, do you? You’ve been examining all our bloody corpses for donkey’s years, and you still refuse to tell us when they died.”
― The Dead of Jericho
After following Morse’s exploits for a book or two, I know readers who gave up trying. I know some female readers who hated the Inspector Morse series because of the predominant misogynistic views of its male characters (in Last Bus to Woodstock, Morse and Lewis spend quite a bit of time discussing whether it is possible for a woman to be raped and finally concluding that it’s quite impossible if the woman is unwilling!).
Personally, I’m not a fan of over-the-top-flawed fictional detectives. I like my detectives to be bright, well-mannered, and kind. They can be flawed without being mean-spirited and brusque. The best example is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache in Louise Penny’s ‘Three Pines series’. Gamache is a perfect gentleman. He has his own demons to fight, but he is utterly sensitive and kind.
Over the years and spending time with darlings like Adam Dalgliesh, Waxford, Miss Marple has made me partial to the likes of rogue detectives like Peter Diamond, Harry Bosch.
Starting the series with the last book and witnessing Morse’s death made me partial to his flaws in the earlier books. I admit I couldn’t warm up to Peter Diamond the way I chose to overlook Morse’s brusqueness.
I guess it’s Dexter’s writing. Despite Morse’s utterly flawed character, one cannot help but admire him for his brilliancy.
Meme credit @ weeguttersnipe and @ britishdetectives on tumbler
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A hard-core reader, Neena is married and a mom to two humans and two dogs.
Tied to Deceit, which was selected in Kirkus’s 18 Indie Books Worth Discovering list, is her debut novel.
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The Things I Know 