The complete Inspector Morse collection (1-13) - Colin Dexter

Category: Adults, Anthology, Detective, Mystery
Language: English
Keywords: British Mystery Morse Oxford

Written by Colin Dexter
Format: MP3
Unabridged

Originally uploaded by Peterg23. Uploader comment follows.

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Most are encoded from cassette tapes except books #12 and #13 which are from CD.
Most are encoded at 32 kbps / 22 kHz Mono, Fraunhofer CBR MP3. All are unabridged.
Narrators include Terrence Hardiman (6 titles), Michael Pennington (5 titles), Colin Dexter (2 titles) and Patrick Tull (1 title).

I posted this collection here several years ago. I have since had many requests to repost it, so here is the complete collection of 13 novels once again.
Many of these unabridged audio titles are still hard to find. I recorded these from decent quality cassette tapes over ten years ago, but even now in 2017 I can still only find unabridged CD quality versions of the last two books!

#1. Last Bus To Woodstock [8 hours] 1975 Read by Terrence Hardiman
The first in the series of Inspector Morse mysteries, this 1975 story of murder centers on the death of Sylvia Kaye, a young woman who has been found dead in the car park of a local Oxford pub by the young man she was supposed to meet. The biggest clues to her death are a letter in code addressed to a woman Sylvia worked for at an insurance agency and a hand-delivered envelope large enough to have contained a significant amount of money. Running parallel with this investigation of Sylvia, her friends, and her free-wheeling lifestyle, is the story of Oxford dons, one of whom is hoping to become the new department chair, a position his wife is very anxious for him to attain. Morse and Sgt. Lewis show only hints of the personalities that will develop later as the series continues. (MW)

#2. Last Seen Wearing [7 hours 48 mins] 1976 Read by Michael Pennington
Inspector Morse was beset by a nagging feeling. Most of his fanciful notions about the Taylor girl had evaporated and he had begun to suspect that further investigation into Valerie’s disappearance would involve little more than sober and tedious routine …The statements before Inspector Morse appeared to confirm the bald, simple truth. After leaving home to return to school, teenager Valerie Taylor had completely vanished, and the trail had gone cold. Until two years, three months and two days after Valerie’s disappearance, somebody decides to supply some surprising new evidence for the case …
(* Be warned, this title in the series could only be found on very old cassettes, and it shows! Several parts are of generally poor quality even after EQ although the narration is still reasonably clear *)

#3. The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn [7 hours 11 mins] 1977 Read by Terrence Hardiman
Morse had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements concerning times of death seemed so disconcertingly vague. The newly appointed member of the Oxford Examinations Syndicate was deaf, provincial and gifted. Now he is dead …And his murder, in his north Oxford home, proves to be the start of a formidably labyrinthine case for Chief Inspector Morse, as he tries to track down the killer through the insular and bitchy world of the Oxford Colleges …

#4. Service of All the Dead [8 hours 10 mins] 1979 Read by Terrence Hardiman
This time Inspector Morse brings the imposition on himself. He could have been vacationing in Greece instead of investigating a murder that the police have long since written off. But he finds the crime–the brutal killing of a suburban churchwarden–fascinating. In fact, he uncovers not one murder but two, for the fatal fall of St. Frideswides vicar from the church tower Morse reckons to be murder as well. And as he digs into the lives and unsanctified lusts of the late vicar’s erring flock, the list of the dead grows longer. Not even the oddly appealing woman he finds scrubbing the church floor can compensate Morse for the trouble he’s let himself in for. So he has another pint, follows his hunches, and sets out to untangle the deadly business of homicide. . . .

#5. The Dead of Jericho [7 hours 50 mins] 1981 Read by Colin Dexter
He meets her at a suburban party. They share a flirtation over their red wine . . . and he doesn’t see her again. It’s the old familiar story for Morse. Then one day he just happens to be in Jericho, where Anne Scott lives. Nobody’s home–and Morse should know since her door is unlocked and he takes a quick look inside. Only later does Morse learn that the lady was at home, just not alive. The jury’s verdict at the inquest is death by suicide. But that doesn’t sit right with Morse, and he embarks on his own investigation into the tangled private life of a lovely woman, all the while feeling his own remorse of what might have been. . . .

#6. The Riddle of the Third Mile [5 hours 40 mins] 1983 Read by Michael Pennington (Thanks to EMP)
A dismembered body is fished out of the Oxford Canal–only the torso remains and Morse and Sergeant Lewis are up to the challenge. As if often the case, Oxford University is involved. A don has disappeared, leaving about a plethora of clues. It’s the long and winding road down the halls of academe for the Thames Valley police and the trail bounces back and forth to London and some of its seedier spots. The scenario seems set with an opening scene out of World War II, when the Gilbert brothers (local boys from the Oxford area) face the horrors of the battle of El Alamein, the youngest of the three dying. The company commander, a Lt. Browne-Smith just happens now to be a don in question at Oxford.

#7. The Secret of Annexe 3 [6 hours 42 mins] 1986 Read by Michael Pennington
Morse sought to hide his disappointment. So many people in the Haworth Hotel that fatal evening had been wearing some sort of disguise - a change of dress, a change of make-up, a change of partner, a change of attitude, a change of life almost: and the man who had died had been the most consummate artist of them all. Chief inspector Morse seldom allowed himself to be caught up in New Year celebrations. So the murder inquiry in the festive hotel had a certain appeal. It was a crime worthy of the season. The corpse was still in fancy dress. And hardly a single guest at the Haworth had registered under a genuine name…

#8. The Wench Is Dead [6 hours 56 mins] 1989 Read by Colin Dexter
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 …

#9. The Jewel That Was Ours [7 hours 8 mins] 1989 Read by Michael Pennington
He looked overweight around the midriff, though nowhere else, and she wondered whether perhaps he drank too much. He looked weary, as if he had been up most of the night conducting his investigations …For Oxford, the arrival of twenty-seven American tourists is nothing out of the ordinary …until one of their number is found dead in Room 310 at the Randolph Hotel. It looks like a sudden - and tragic - accident. Only Chief Inspector Morse appears not to overlook the simultaneous theft of a jewel-encrusted antique from the victim’s handbag …Then, two days later, a naked and battered corpse is dragged from the River Cherwell. A coincidence? Maybe. But this time Morse is determined to prove the link …

#10. The Way Through the Woods [8 hours 24 mins] 1992 Read by Michael Pennington
They called her the Swedish Maiden - the beautiful young tourist who disappeared on a hot summer’s day somewhere in North Oxford. Twelve months later the case remained unsolved - pending further developments - at Thames Valley CID. On holiday in Lyme Regis, Chief Inspector Morse is startled to read a tantalizing article in The Times about the missing woman. An article which lures him back to Wytham Woods near Oxford…and straight into the most extraordinary murder investigation of his career.

#11. The Daughters of Cain [9 hours 53 mins] 1994 Read by Terrence Hardiman
Morse is up against a baffling murder inherited from a colleague who left the bloodied trail cold and unsolved. Along with his faithful, long suffering Sergeant Lewis must pick up the tangled threads and make some sense out of the sensless. An Oxford Professor has been brutally stabbed to death and the trail leads to the brutal college handiman who may or may not have been dealing drugs. When the prime suspect vanishes, Morse is left to sort out an overabundance of suspects including the brutal handiman’s wife, abused step-daughter prostitute and an Oxford School Teacher. Dexter’s chapter openings of quotes and aphorisms add to the enjoyment as the reader tries to find the thread which leads to the next clue which wraps up the conclusion is a very fullfilling climax.

#12. Death Is Now My Neighbour [8 hours 53 mins] 1996 Read by Terrence Hardiman. CD
As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun. ‘You haven’t told me what you think about this fellow Owens - the dead woman’s next-door neighbour.’ ‘Death is always the next-door neighbour,’ said Morse sombrely. The murder of a young woman …A cryptic ’seventeenth-century’ love poem …And a photograph of a mystery grey-haired man …It’s more than enough to set Chief Inspector E. Morse on the trail of a killer. And it’s a trail that leads him to Lonsdale College, where the contest between Julian Storrs and Dr. Denis Cornford for the coveted position of Master is hotting up. But then, Morse faces a greater, far more personal crisis …

#13. The Remorseful Day [10 hours 54 mins] 1999 Read by Terrence Hardiman. CD
The first Inspector Morse novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, appeared over a quarter-century ago. This finale to a grand series presents a moving elegy to one of mystery fiction’s most celebrated and popular characters. The murder of nurse Yvonne Harrington two years earlier remains unsolved, but the Oxford police receive an anonymous tip that prompts them to revive their investigation. Morse’s superior, Chief Superintendent Strange, wants him to take over the case, but Morse is stubbornly and curiously reluctant to do so. Morse’s faithful dogsbody, the long-suffering Sergeant Lewis, is left wondering whether Morse himself is some how connected to the crime, since the inspector had encountered the murder victim during a stay in the hospital. It falls to Lewis to do most of the delving, with Morse prompting him along the way. The case seems impenetrable until the murder of burglar Harry Repp - though what could be the connection to the original murder? Lewis continues to probe while Morse remains his oracular self.

Morse’s Greatest Mystery: And Other Stories [7 hours 56 mins] Read by Patrick Tull (Thanks to EMP)
As Good as Gold (1993), Morse’s Greatest Mystery (1993), Evans Tries an O-Level (1993), Dead as a Dodo (1992), At the Lulu-Bar Motel (1981), Neighborhood Watch (1993), A Case of Mis-Identity (1993), The Inside Story (1993), Monty’s Revolver (1993), The Carpet-Bagger (1993), Last Call (1993). (Please note that only six of the short stories here feature Inspector Morse).

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/21/colin-dexter-obituary