‘It really is rubbish’
One of the world’s most popular mystery writers lived in one half of an unglamorous, stucco-covered duplex on a busy Oxford, England, road near an even busier roundabout.
That was the first surprising thing about Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse, when interviewed in 1996. But there were further surprises when the amiable 66-yearold in a baggy cardigan sweater quickly made it clear that he considered his books to be rubbish.
His admirers, of course, thought differently and said so when Dexter died March 21 at the age of 86. Jack Reacher author Lee Child called him revolutionary for creating a detective beloved by millions despite being “bad-tempered, cantankerous, esoteric and abstruse.”
Is Dexter’s ghost quietly laughing at such posthumous praise? True, Dexter himself said Morse was “a miserable old sod.” But the soft-spoken former classics teacher also said he hated the thought of his writing being taken seriously.
“When I say it’s rubbish, it really is rubbish,” he said firmly.
For Dexter, a true work of art was a cunningly designed cryptic crossword puzzle — a personal passion that elevated Dexter to championship ranks.
Furthermore, his irascible Oxford policeman would never have happened at all had not Wales experienced lousy weather in the summer of 1973.
Dexter and his family were holed up in a miserable Welsh guest house while the rain ruined their holiday. Desperate for something to read, he picked up a couple of dog-eared crime novels in the resident’s lounge.
“I can’t even remember their names,” he said. “All I remember is that they weren’t very good, and I suddenly had the idea that I might be able to do as well as these writers. So I sat down and wrote a couple of pages.”
He kept at it, with Morse coming to life in the novel Last Bus to Woodstock. Its acceptance for publication astonished him as did the subsequent international success of his series of intricately crafted crime novels set in his beloved Oxford — a success boosted further by a popular Morse television series.
Dexter was interviewed in ’96 connection with the arrival of his 12th Morse novel, Death Is Now My Neighbour. All of them, he said proudly, written from a position of blissful ignorance.
“I don’t know anything about the police,” he said. “I think I’ve contributed 72 murders in the novels and on the telly. But I don’t know anything about the scenes of crime or that sort of thing. I’ve never been on a murder investigation, so I don’t know what happens there.”
He didn’t even own a computer or a word processor: most of his books were written on the kitchen table.
“I write a load of rubbish in longhand right through to the end. Then I go back to the beginning and keep revising. … An old lady at the top of the road eventually types it all out for me. She’s very good — she’ll tell me if something is useless or if I’m getting it wrong.”
Dexter admitted he bestowed some of his own personal obsessions on Morse — crosswords, Wagnerian opera, A.E. Houseman’s poetry and Greek classical literature.
And in Death Is Now My Neighbour, the insulin-dependent Dexter afflicted Morse with diabetes. But after two decades his cantankerous cop, whom he would kill off in 1999’s The Remorseful Day, hadn’t become any nicer.
Dexter was a great admirer of the late John Thaw, who played Morse on television. But he was constantly having to remind fans that he was not a bit like Thaw.
“John Thaw is very sexy. I am short, fat, bald and deaf, and I’ve lived a sheltered life.”