Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter dies at 86

LONDON » Colin Dexter, the unassuming British writer who created curmudgeonly, music-loving Oxford detective Inspector Morse, has died aged 86.

Publisher Pan Macmillan said Dexter died Tuesday at his home in Oxford, southern England.

Macmillan publisher Jeremy Trevathan said Dexter “represented the absolute epitome of British crime writing.”

“With Colin’s death there has been a tectonic shift in the international crime writing scene,” he said.

Crime writer Ian Rankin tweeted that Dexter was “a gentle man with a steel mind; and the creator of such an iconic character.”

Born in 1930 in Stamford, central England, Dexter studied classics at Cambridge University and became a teacher, examiner and textbook author before turning to fiction. He began writing a detective novel to help pass the time during a wet vacation in Wales.

“Last Bus to Woodstock,” published in 1975, introduced Morse, a detective with a love of real ale, classical music and crosswords — and for a long time, no first name, at least not one disclosed to readers.

In the 1996 novel “Death is Now My Neighbor” his given name was revealed to be Endeavour.

Morse, accompanied by the trustworthy Sgt. Lewis, solved murders and mysteries in the ancient English university city in 13 novels until Dexter killed him off in “The Remorseful Day” in 1999.

Some fans were distraught to see Morse go.

“I get letters from people who are very fed up and say they are not going to forgive me,” Dexter said the following year. “But he’s been with me for 27 years and I’m going to miss him more than anybody.”

Dexter shared his hero’s affection for good beer, classical music and crossword puzzles, but by all accounts lacked his prickly nature.

Maria Rejt, Dexter’s editor at Macmillan, said he would be remembered for “his loyalty, modesty and self-deprecating humor.”