For Morse, the End Is Nigh

Although U.S. fans probably won’t see it (on PBS-TV) until sometime this coming summer, the last-ever episode of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel series starring Shaun Evans and Roger Allam, is scheduled to debut in Great Britain this coming Sunday evening. “Exeunt,” as it is titled, will be the third 90-minute installment in Season 9 of that popular crime drama, bringing the total number of Endeavour episodes to 36—three more than were filmed for Inspector Morse and its sequel, Lewis (aka Inspector Lewis).

When this show’s action began in Oxford, England, the year was 1965. As Season 9 kicks off, it’s the spring of 1972, and Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse (Evans) has returned to Castle Gate Police Station after taking some time off to deal with his drinking problem. But other troubles and tensions await. Joan Thursday (played by Sara Vickers), the daughter of Morse’s superior, Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday (Allam), is planning to wed Detective Sergeant Jim Strange (Sean Rigby), leaving our hero to be “the best man at a ceremony where he may once have hoped to be the groom,” as the Web site Den of Geek puts it. Meanwhile, there’s gang violence brewing in the historic university town of Oxford; questions are once more bubbling up about long-ago violence and abuse at the Blenheim Vale correctional facility for boys (integral to Season 2 of this show); and threats from Thursday’s past leave the DCI trying desperately to safeguard the people about whom he cares the most.

As Endeavour wraps up production, one big unknown remains to be addressed: What happened between Morse and Fred Thursday that led the former to never again mention his old boss, either in Colin Dexter’s original Morse novels or in the 1987-2000 Inspector Morse TV series? My gut-level theory has been that Morse did something which caused Thursday’s tragic demise, and the guilt he felt over that event led him to bury his memories of their partnership. However, Roger Allam suggests a different possibility in a syndicated interview about the finale episode, excerpted by The Killing Times:

We wanted there to be an end. A point where Endeavour can move off into John Thaw’s Inspector Morse. It felt the right time. We had done plenty of films. From my point of view, I also wanted something that had emotional heft that gave a good reason why Morse never mentioned Thursday in the later John Thaw years. Which I think we do satisfactorily in this. I think we covered all of those bases very well. Thursday says to Chief Supt. Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser) in this series that Endeavour is the soul of discretion and if a secret wants keeping, Morse will take it to the grave. And, as the audience will discover, there is something about Thursday that Endeavour will, indeed, take to his grave. There are also echoes of Inspector Morse in the final episode which I hope will be emotionally satisfying for the audience.

So there’s an important or perhaps horrible confidence Morse will be required to keep under his hat forever, preventing him from acknowledging his decade of mentorship by Thursday? UK viewers will apparently discover that secret on Sunday. Americans like me will have to wait for a few more months to find out the answer.

A Coda for Morse

It had to happen sometime. British broadcaster ITV-TV has announced that the crime drama Endeavour, starring Shaun Evans and Roger Allam, will end following its ninth season, currently in development.

The show is a prequel to Inspector Morse, the 1987-2000 series starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately, and based on Colin Dexter’s long-running succession of novels. A spinoff starring Whately and Laurence Fox, Inspector Lewis, ran from 2006 to 2015. All three series have been well received, with the original being declared “the greatest British crime drama of all time by Radio Times’ readers” and “rank[ing] 42 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute,” according to Wikipedia.

An Endeavour pilot film was shown in 2012, and the first season debuted in 2013. Episodes rolled out since have followed Endeavour Morse, a rising (but periodically troubled) young policeman, through his early years in the 1960s and early 1970s. Thirty-three episodes have already been aired—one more than each of its predecessors—and Series 9 will add three additional installments, bringing the total count up to 37. Filming for that last season, with stories to take place in 1972, began in and around Oxford earlier this week.

In a new piece looking back at this program’s ups and downs, Chris Jenkins of The Killing Times writes:

As the start of season nine is set in 1972, we must assume that there will always be a gap in time between the end of Endeavour and the start of Inspector Morse; something that may serve to excuse some of the inconsistencies that have arisen. The last season will have to resolve at least one big issue—why the older Inspector Morse never mentioned his former boss Fred Thursday (we know, this may be a pedantic point, but writers are paid to resolve such matters). …

Perhaps [the show] has served its purpose, and there are new detectives to move on to (we rather like Roger Allam as Antoine Verlaque in Acorn TV’s Murder in Provence, for one). We just hope that the final season of Endeavour returns to the high level of its earlier episodes, and serves as a fitting tribute to the one, the only, the original Inspector Morse.

As part of the statement regarding Endeavour’s end, executive producer Damien Timmer says, “Endeavour has been a real labour of love for all of us, and we salute [screenwriter] Russell Lewis for his extraordinary achievement in chronicling Endeavour Morse’s coming of age across 72 hours of TV. Russell always knew where he wanted the series to end, and that Remorseful Day is nearly upon us! We’d like to thank Shaun and Roger and all the other members of the Endeavour family on and off screen, and the show’s fans both in the U.K. and abroad. Russell has many surprises up his sleeve for the final three films, with the return of some familiar faces and new challenges for Endeavour and Thursday to face before the final goodbye!”

The final set of Endeavour episodes is expected in 2023.

In the meantime, Season 8 of this series is due to premiere in the States as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece lineup on Sunday, June 19, with the first of three new episodes.

Taking a Stab at “Cain”

Thanks to a tip from blogger Chris Sullivan, we had the opportunity last month to listen to “In the Shadows,” a new, 90-minute BBC Radio 4 drama featuring Colin Dexter’s famous Inspector Morse.

Now Sullivan has posted the full audiobook version of Dexter’s The Daughters of Cain, the 11th Morse mystery, read by none other than Kevin Whately, who portrayed Robert “Robbie” Lewis in both the Inspector Morse TV series and the much later Lewis (aka Inspector Lewis). Go to Sullivan’s blog, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour, to listen to The Daughters of Cain. It runs almost three hours long.

Another Course of Morse

Tomorrow night, Sunday, will bring the fourth episode of Endeavour, Season 5, to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece series. But if you’re in the mood for a fresh Inspector Morse investigation right now, note that Chris Sullivan has posted “In the Shadows,” a full new, 90-minute BBC Radio 4 episode starring Morse and his colleague, Sergeant Robbie Lewis, in his blog, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour.

Of this audio drama, Sullivan writes:

Terrible things happen even in beautiful places and among highly educated people. Morse, Lewis and [Superintendent Jim] Strange are back on their criminally fertile Oxford patch—dealing with a mysterious pair of Oxford students who appear to be fish out of water, a Don found dead in the river, and an attractive philosopher who pleads with Morse to drop his investigation to save her career.

It’s still the early 1990s when computers, mobiles, digital media, and sophisticated forensic techniques are not yet in use. Morse’s detection methods rely on instinct, acutely honed observational skills, and dogged gumshoe perseverance. Colin Dexter’s Oxford detectives feature in a story devised by former Morse TV writer Alma Cullen, adapted by Richard Stoneman.

Click here to listen to the whole program.

Bullet Points: Spring at Last! Edition

• I just caught up with this piece from The Economist, titled “To Understand Britian, Read Its Spy Novels,” in which Walter Bagehot asserts that “The spy novel is the quintessential British fictional form in the same way that the Western is quintessentially American. Britain’s best spy novelists are so good precisely because they use the genre to explore what it is that makes Britain British: the obsession with secrecy, the nature of the establishment, the agonies of imperial decline, and the complicated tug of patriotism.”

• Only the other day I was remarking on my astonishment at seeing Steve Scott’s fine John D. MacDonald blog, The Trap of Solid Gold, suddenly return from what I had feared was its grave. I should note as well that Bookgasm, which disappeared completely in early December of last year, is also back with new reviews. Hurrah!

• Now for the bad news: Pornokitsch, a popular culture blog that does not really have anything to do with pornography (a poor name choice, indeed) will be shutting down at the end of this month, after a full decade of operation. As its termination draws near, however, the site seems to have become more active than ever.

• This comes from In Reference to Murder:

Frequency’s Peyton List has been tapped as the female lead opposite Joseph Morgan in Fox’s untitled drama pilot based on the best-selling book Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane. Laysla De Oliveira also has been cast as a series regular in the project, from 20th Century Fox TV and Miramax, which was behind the 2007 movie adaptation directed by Ben Affleck. Written by Black Sails co-creator Robert Levine and directed by Phillip Noyce, the untitled project centers on private detectives Patrick Kenzie (Joseph Morgan) and

Peyton List

Angela Gennaro (List) who, armed with their wits, their street knowledge and an undeniable chemistry, right wrongs the law can’t in the working-class Boston borough of Dorchester.

• In other small-screen casting news, Deadline Hollywood reports that “Sarah Jones (Damnation, The Path) is set as a female lead in [the] CBS drama pilot L.A. Confidential, based on James Ellroy’s classic noir novel.” It goes on to say this show will follow “three homicide detectives, a female reporter (Alana Arenas), and a Hollywood actress (Jones) whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a sadistic serial killer among the secrets and lies of gritty, glamorous 1950s Los Angeles. Jones’s Lynn is a sharp Veronica Lake-like beauty, an aspiring Hollywood actress—and not one to compromise her principles. When she finds a best friend brutally murdered and Jack Vincennes (Walton Goggins) unexpectedly at the scene before she’s had time to call the police, Lynn knows she has something on the LAPD detective—and decides to use it to help solve the horrible crime. The role of Lynn was played by Kim Basinger in the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential, earning her an Oscar.”

• The fifth season of Endeavour, the acclaimed British crime drama and prequel to Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse tales, hasn’t even begun running in the States (at best, we can hope for a late-summer debut). But it has already been renewed for a sixth season.

• If you just can’t stand waiting around to take in the further exploits of a young Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse (played by Shaun Evans) and his mentor, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), note that the British TV blog Killing Times contains reviews of all six episodes in Series 5. (Endeavour was broadcast in the UK earlier this year.) Just beware of inevitable spoilers! Here are the necessary links: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; and Episode 6. Those last two installments are labeled as belonging to Series 4, rather than 5, but that’s an error.

• Incidentally, it was a year ago tomorrow—on March 21, 2017—that Morse creator Colin Dexter passed away at age 86.

• Series 4 of Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall and based on/inspired by Ann Cleeves’ still-expanding series of novels, is another crime drama that hasn’t yet made it to U.S. screens. (The last of its six episodes was shown tonight in the UK.) Again, though, Killing Times has been recapping all of its episodes.

• Prior to the debut of either of those series, PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! has slated the broadcast of Unforgotten, described by Wikipedia as following “two London detectives, DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar), as they work together to solve cold cases involving historic disappearances and murders.” Janet Rudolph points out that this program is set to run on Sunday nights from April 8 through May 13. “Unforgotten,” she adds, “is a really thoughtful, well-acted and -plotted detective show, and there are two seasons that will be aired. I binged the first season and found it mesmerizing. I highly recommend it.”

• This is unfortunate—and rather weird—news. Last week, just a few months after Spinetingler Magazine debuted its first print edition in years (you can still purchase a copy here), editor and owner Jack Getze posted word that “current Fiction Editor Sandra Ruttan has resigned, effective immediately.” He went on to say,

We’ve had a serious and unsolvable disagreement about current and future issues. Since I cannot run this magazine by myself, Spinetingler will close sometime this Spring.

To those writers who have received acceptances from me, my plan is to publish your stories before we disappear. Let me know if you’d rather pull the story and resubmit elsewhere. As to the writers contacted by Sandra for an upcoming print issue, please contact me if you’d like your story to run online. There will not be another Spinetingler print issue and you are free to resubmit elsewhere.

In a Facebook post appearing around the same time, Ruttan—who, in 2005, co-founded the magazine with K. Robert Einarson—wrote: “My vision for Spinetingler was always about finding the story I was excited to publish and putting out quality material, promoting great fiction. The direction is changing, so it’s time for me to go.”

• Just before I finished assembling this extensive edition of “Bullet Points,” I saw a note in Sandra Seamans’ My Little Corner blog, reading: “I’m not sure why, but the Spinetingler website has disappeared. I know they were closing down but they were supposed to be publishing more stories.” Seamans goes on to observe that “Spinetinger editors Sandra Ruttan and Brian Lindenmuth are starting up a new crime magazine called Toe Six Press.”

• CrimeReads, the new site from Literary Hub, has gotten off to a fairly healthy start, though there are definitely weaknesses to be worked on in the near future. Worth taking a look at there so far: senior editor Dwyer Murphy’s “25 Classic Crime Books You Can Read in an Afternoon”; Ned Beauman’s feature about conspiracy novels in the age of “fake news” and Trump; and Adrian McKinty’s “Everybody Loves to Hate a Dirty Cop: 10 Books of Corruption and Greed.”

• Kim Fay has a nice piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books about the cultural complexities Sujata Massey dealt with in writing The Widows of Malabar Hill, set in 1920s Bombay, India.

• Oh, how I wish I were in London, England! Through this coming Saturday, March 24, that city’s Lever Gallery, in Clerkenwell, is hosting “Uncovered: Illustrating the Sixties and Seventies,” a showcase of the original art from paperback covers of that era. “Artists selected for this exhibition,” explains the gallery’s Web site, “include Ian Robertson, Yorkshire born Michael Johnson, who, with his Fine Art background and distinctive style, soon became one of the most sought after illustrators of the period, and a group of Italian illustrators who worked and lived around Soho and Chelsea, including the highly influential and style-setting Renato Fratini, and other colleagues—many of whom had previously worked in the Italian film industry, such as Gianluigi Coppola, Giorgio De Gaspari, and Pino Dell’Orco.” Flashbak, a photo-obsessed Internet resource, collects a handful of the more than 40 works on display, including Fratini paintings that grace several Mickey Spillane books (The Twisted Thing, The Girl Hunters, etc.) and Johnson’s gorgeous artwork for the 1965 novel A Crowd of Voices, by Richard Lortz. Flashbak’s presentation of these pieces is so captivating, I can even forgive the site its misuse of “pulp fiction” and its misspelling of Erle Stanley Gardner’s name. To see more of the works on display (sadly, in smaller representations), click here.

• Have you been enjoying “PaperBack,” the twice-weekly feature The Rap Sheet picked up from the late Bill Crider’s blog, focused on vintage book fronts? If so, you might also wish to sample “Thrift Shop Book Covers” in Ben Boulden’s Gravetapping. As Boulden explained when he launched that series back in late December 2013, “Thrift Shop Book Covers” features “the cover art and miscellany of books I find at thrift stores and used bookshops. It is reserved for books I purchased as much for the cover art as the story or author.“

• In case you missed seeing it, Killer Covers posted the concluding entry in its Harry Bennett tribute this last Saturday. All in all, the blog showcased more than 190 of Bennett’s painted paperback covers. It also posted this lengthy interview with Bennett’s youngest son, Tom. You can scroll through the full series here.

• Fox-TV’s longest-running animated sitcom, The Simpsons, saluted George Peppard’s 1972-1974 series, Banacek, in its most recent episode, “Homer Is Where the Art Isn’t.” The show found actor-comedian Bill Hader voicing the suave and sexy Manacek, described by AV Club as a “turtleneck-sporting [insurance] investigator who’ll either clear Homer of a major art theft or send the Simpson paterfamilias to prison for a very, very long time.” For folks (like me) who harbor fond memories of Banacek and the whole 1970s NBC Mystery Movie lineup, there was special delight to be found in this ep’s opening title sequence, which was based on the original Banacek intro, complete with Billy Goldenberg’s theme. Enjoy that segment below.



• You can read more about the episode here.

• It’s not easy keeping up with crime-fiction news. Yet David Nemeth is doing a bang-up job of it in his blog, Unlawful Acts. Nemeth’s weekly “Incident Report” posts are packed with leads to reviews, features, and other stories from all over the Web. He even provides an assortment of new and forthcoming genre releases.

• New Zealand professor and author Liam McIlvanney (whose Where the Dead Men Go won the 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel) has posted a thoughtful piece on his Web site addressing the newly launched Staunch Book Prize and ways to deal with violence against women in crime writing. Find his comments here.

• Television Obscurities reports that “Warner Archive’s streaming service is shutting down [after April 26]. Launched in 2013 as Warner Archive Instant, the service offered subscribers a mix of films, TV shows, and made-for-TV movies drawn from the Warner Bros. library. Some of the [vintage] TV shows available at one time or another [were] Cain’s Hundred, The Gallant Men, Man from Atlantis, Maya, Logan’s Run, Beyond Westworld, Search, The Lieutenant, Jericho, The Jimmy Stewart Show, Lucan, and Bronk.”

• British author Colin Cotterill receives some love from the Nikkei Asian Review for his novels starring Dr. Siri Paiboun, the crime-solving state coroner at the morgue in Laos’ capital, Vientiane. “Cotterill can boast of being the only Western author of a murder-mystery series set in Laos,” declares the publication, “although the expat-penned detective genre abounds in Thailand.”

• Congratulations to all of the authors—Patricia Abbott, Craig Pittman, J.D. Allen, Hilary Davidson, and Alex Seguara among them—whose work has been selected to appear in the 2018 Bouchercon anthology, awaiting publication later this year.

• Carter Brown fans, listen up! Stark House’s second collection of his work, featuring three early novels, has been scheduled for publication in late May. The previous collection was published last October.

• The 2002 film Road to Perdition, based on Max Allan Collins’ 1998 graphic novel of the same name, has found a place on Taste of Cinema’s list of “The 10 Most Stylish Movies of the 21st Century.”

• Esquire magazine selects “The 25 Best True-Crime Books Every Person Should Read.” I can claim to have read about half of them.

• While we’re on the subject of lists, take a look at Craig Sisterson’s choices of a dozen New Zealand crime writers “whose books will give you an insight into this faraway place and its people.” And yes, Paul Thomas and Vanda Symon are both included.

• Elsewhere, Florida author Steph Post fingers “11 Great Authors Defining Noir in the Sunshine State.”

• Your trivia lesson for the day: The Straight Dope’s Cecil Adams addresses that immortal question, “How did the gavel end up in American courtrooms?”

• Barbara Gregorich, author of the new biography Charlie Chan’s Poppa: Earl Derr Biggers, writes in Mystery Fanfare about her long-standing interest in Biggers’ honorable Honolulu sleuth.

• Good question: Why are TV detectives always so sad?

• A few author interviews worth finding on the Web: Alison Gaylin (If I Die Tonight) and Naomi Hirahara (Hiroshima Boy) are Nancie Clare’s most recent guests on the podcast Speaking of Mysteries; Robert Goddard takes questions from Crime Fiction Lover’s Catherine Turnbull about his new thriller, Panic Room; Criminal Element chats with Christi Daugherty about her first novel for adults, The Echo Killing; blogger Colman Keane talks with Margot Kinberg about Downfall; and Crimespree Magazine goes one-on-one with Christopher Rice, discussing his fresh release, Bone Music.

• Calling Fox News a “propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, a frequent Fox contributor, has chosen not to renew his contract with that network. According to the Web site BuzzFeed, Peters sent a message to colleagues saying, “Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.” This wouldn’t usually have been fodder for a Rap Sheet item; however, you may recall that Peters, under the pseudonym Owen Parry, penned half a dozen mystery novels set during America’s Civil War and starring a detective named Abel Jones. (The first book in that series was 1999’s Faded Coat of Blue.) It’s good to see that Peters has been keeping himself busy since he stopped writing the Jones books in 2005.

On the Passing of Colin Dexter

It was with sadness that I learned today of the death, at age 86, of British educator-turned-author Colin Dexter. Born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, back in 1930 as Norman Colin Dexter, he went on to create the often-cantankerous and Oxford-based mystery-series protagonist Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, who first appeared in 1975’s Last Bus to Woodstock. Dexter’s 13 Morse yarns and additional short stories later provided the basis for the 1987-2000 ITV detective drama Inspector Morse starring John Thaw, and inspired a small-screen sequel, Inspector Lewis (2006-2015), as well as the prequel Endeavour (2012-present). According to the Daily Mail, Dexter “died peacefully at home in Oxford this morning.”

In its obituary of Dexter, The Guardian writes:

Though he thought of himself primarily as a school teacher, Colin Dexter will be remembered as the crime writer who created the curmudgeonly but entertaining Inspector Morse. Morse, the beer, crossword and Wagner-loving detective who drives a vintage Jaguar around Oxford, solves murders by deep thinking, often about chance remarks made by his sidekick, Sergeant [Robbie] Lewis.

Dexter … claimed that he was no writer, but could revise his “bad starts” into something that worked. The formula was certainly a success for some dozen Morse novels and many original scripts for television, the medium that delivered the doings of the idiosyncratic Morse to an audience across 50 countries. “I just started writing and forced myself to keep going,” he said. “And it’s been the same ever since.” …

Dexter happily went along with publicity strategies to boost Morse because he felt he owed a debt of gratitude to his publishers but, like Morse, he hated cant and pretentiousness. He made millions out of Morse but lived in the same four-bedroomed house in Oxford that he had occupied since moving to the city in 1966.

He was neither impressed by displays of wealth nor anxious to live up to his income, his main sybaritic expenditure being on red wine, Flowers beer, whisky and his car. The last of these was as elderly as Morse’s, but of a lesser make. The one extravagance to which Dexter would admit was his purchase of the first editions of the works of [English scholar-poet] A.E. Housman. He had planned to write a book on Housman when he finished with his detective, but found by that time that other writers had cornered the market.

The Guardian adds this touching note:

Dexter was often asked whether he wrote for a readership or for himself. His answer was that he wrote for his old English teacher Mr. Sharp. He would write a page and then ask himself, “Would Mr. Sharp like that?” His aim was to feel that Mr. Sharp would give it at least eight out of 10.

Among the encomia delivered today in memory of Dexter are these remarks from UK crime-fiction critic Barry Forshaw:

“Dexter’s Oxford copper is one of the defining figures in British detective fiction—a multifaceted, fascinating protagonist who readers have followed avidly through a series of beautifully turned and ingenious novels. In a line of descent that extends back to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (notably via the laser-sharp intellect), Inspector Morse is a character who can stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best in the genre. Interestingly, his creator shared several characteristics and traits with his hero; he was classically erudite (with a particular love of the poetry of Housman, as mentioned above), and shrewdly analytical in terms of the varied personalities he encountered. But Dexter was the polar opposite of Morse in terms of his character: extremely affable, immensely charming and humorous—and (most of all) sensitive to the feelings of those around him. An anti-Morse, in fact.”

And this piece in The Bookseller adds more to Dexter’s story:

In later life, Dexter had type 2 diabetes, a condition that he also gave Morse in the last few books of the series. Morse was killed off in Dexter’s final book, The Remorseful Day, which published in 1999.

Dexter was awarded an OBE [Order of the British Empire] for services to literature in 2000 and was given the Freedom of the City in Oxford in 2001. He also won the CWA [Crime Writers’ Association’s] Diamond Dagger award and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction. ...

“I’m extremely sorry to hear of the death of Colin Dexter. He was the first crime writer I really discovered, having been led to his books through an obsession with the Morse television series,” [Waterstones fiction buyer Chris] White told The Bookseller. “The intelligence, wit and melancholy which were the hallmarks of his writing established a legacy of page-turning erudition which will ensure his books are bought and read long into the future.”

All of us here at The Rap Sheet offer our sympathies to Colin Dexter’s family and friends in the wake of his passing.

READ MORE: “Inspector Morse Creator Colin Dexter Dead at 86,” by Sian Cain (The Guardian); “Colin Dexter, Creator of Inspector Morse, Who Sleuthed in Novels and on TV, Dies at 86,” by William Grimes (The New York Times); “Inspector Morse Creator Colin Dexter Dead at 86” (The Sydney Morning Herald); “How Colin Dexter Changed the Face of Crime Fiction,” by John Dugdale (The Guardian); “Colin Dexter—Goodbye to an Old Friend,” by Mike Ripley (Shots).

Finding Clues to Morse’s Future in His Past

In case you have forgotten, tonight will introduce a new chapter in the life of British Inspector Endeavour Morse to U.S. TV watchers. The 90-minute ITV pilot titled simply Endeavour--a prequel to Colin Dexter’s 13 Morse novels as well as the 1987-2000 TV series Inspector Morse, based on those books--will begin showing at 9 p.m. ET/PT under the umbrella of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series. Set in 1965, this teleflick stars Shaun Evans as the eponymous inspector, who’s just starting out in his career with the Oxford City Police.

Evans puts in an excellent performance in Endeavour, which was broadcast in the UK in January of this year and has already spawned a new series, expected to debut on the other side of the Atlantic sometime this summer. Los Angeles Times television critic Robert Lloyd has this to say about the pilot and Evans’ role in it:

He is not yet the irascible white-haired terrier we know from Morse, and Evans, who has something of [Morse star John] Thaw’s chin and height, does not attempt an obvious imitation of his coming self. But even before we see Morse’s newly young face, we are teased with his totems--with the sounds of opera and a glimpse of a crossword puzzle. (Not for the first time--or the last, depending on how you look at it--will a crossword figure into a Morse mystery.) Two fingers type what looks like a resignation letter; living in his future, we know better.

Before Endeavour is over, we will have seen Morse introduced to driving a Jaguar (with a cameo appearance by the very Jag he will later own); to his first taste of ale, which he will keep on tasting until the end; and to pathologist Max de Bryn (here played by James Bradshaw). Abigail Thaw, John Thaw’s daughter, has a small part as a newspaper editor, possibly just so she can ask Morse if she’s met him someplace. And author Dexter, whose stamp of approval, or at least allowance, is on the current series, makes a background appearance, as has long been his practice.

Meanwhile, Oline Cogdill supplies a brief synopsis of Endeavour’s plot in a blog post for Mystery Scene:

Endeavour’s first case involves a missing 15-year-old girl. He and his colleagues are called in from a neighboring town to help with the investigation, lead by Inspector Thursday (Roger Allam) who soon learns to appreciate Endeavour’s unconventional mind.

Endeavour’s hunches lead him to cryptic crossword puzzles, English Romantic poetry and clever disguises that no other cop thinks about. The plot works well and seeing Endeavour put it together is fascinating.

Endeavour is another project by Russell Lewis, who developed the crime drama Inspector Lewis, a sequel to Inspector Morse that started showing in the States in 2008.

Oh, and I can’t forget to mention that the first of four new episodes of Lewis is set to debut on Masterpiece Mystery! next Sunday.

Morse Sends His Regards

We want to send out our fondest wishes to Colin Dexter, the British schoolteacher turned author who created the now-famous mystery fiction characters Inspector Endeavour Morse and Sergeant (later Inspector) Robbie Lewis. He turns 80 years old today.

Slow News Day Pickings

• The big news today is that Leonardo DiCaprio is in line to play beach bum and “salvage consultant”-cum-sleuth Travis McGee in a film adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s first McGee novel, The Deep Blue Good-By (1964). That character has been interpreted twice before in two separate films: by Rod Taylor in Darker Than Amber (1970), and by the underappreciated Sam Elliott in Travis McGee, a 1983 teleflick (and series pilot) based on The Empty Copper Sea (1978). I liked Elliott--sans mustache--in the title role, and enjoyed seeing his wife, the lovely Katharine Ross (of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fame), as Travis’ latest love interest. Still, Travis McGee left much to be desired. Crimespree Cinema’s Jeremy Lynch is more than a little skeptical of DiCaprio’s ability to do better at filling McGee’s flip-flops (“I simply can’t see Leo as Travis McGee. Not in the slightest.”). But DiCaprio is a performer with a hell of a lot of range. And although he’s rather small and wiry to fit my image of MacDonald’s protagonist, he might just surprise everyone and make a decent McGee. And hey, he’s already got the eye squint he’ll need to withstand all that Florida sunshine.

• News that film director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland over the weekend and may now be extradited to the States for raping a 13-year-old girl in California in 1977 has provoked pop-culture critic Jamie J. Weinman to look back at Chinatown (1974), which is probably Polanski’s best-known movie. His conclusion: “not only is it somewhat atypical of Polanski’s career, it’s also somewhat atypical of [screenwriter] Robert Towne’s career.”

• A team of researchers at Kansas State University decided to map out where the storied Seven Deadly Sins are most practiced in the United States. Greed scores highest in Southern California and the Northeast, but Wrath, Lust, and Pride are problems especially in the Bible-thumping South. Go figure. The map is here.

• At Hard-boiled Wonderland, author Craig McDonald (Rogue Males, Toros and Torsos) comments on Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 “crime-inflected ballad,” “Highway Patrolman.” Read his post here.

• Congratulations to Megan Abbott on her two new book deals.

• Stephen King wants to turn his 2005 Hard Case Crime novel, The Colorado Kid, into a TV series called Haven.
• If you haven’t done so, there’s still time to vote for who you think should win the 2009 ITV3 Bestseller Dagger Award. Nominated are Dick Francis, Alexander McCall Smith, Nicci French, Harlan Coben, and Martina Cole. Voting will remain open until Wednesday, October 21. Make your opinions known here.

• What sets British private eyes apart from their American cousins? Jim Stringer of the blog Do Some Damage puts that question to authors Ray Banks and Russel D. McLean.

• Today is the 79th birthday of author Colin Dexter, the creator of British Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse and his onetime “sidekick,” Robbie Lewis, who is now the star of his own excellent TV series. Columnist, novelist, and sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mike Ripley passed on this news about Dexter’s birthday--along with a mention that today also happens to be his own birthday, though Ripley carefully refrained from telling which one.

“In Short, He’s a Really Good Bloke”

On the occasion of Colin Dexter’s 77th birthday (which was actually September 29), British critic, author, and columnist Mike Ripley delivers in Shots a fulsome tribute to the creator of Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse. Writes Ripley:

… Colin was not only good company in private, over a pint of ale. In public he was (and still is) a wonderfully warm, self-effacing speaker who charms an audience with his natural wit and erudition, dealing politely with even the most inane questions from an audience or interviewer (and inane questions he has been asked many, many times previously).

He has a fund of anecdotes and stories which gave the unwary listener the impression that he was just a simple man of simple pleasures (doing the crossword, visiting the Garden Centre at week-ends, listening to The Archers) for whom this whole ‘bestselling author’ thing [had] all been a bit of a surprise.

Listening to him speak, an unwitting audience could be forgiven for not realising that this was the same man who generates 1,230,000 hits when his name is Googled (as opposed to 970,000 hits for “Inspector Morse”), and though he may have absolutely no idea of what being Googled involves, this is a man who uses words like boustrophedon in a modern detective story (along with an estimated 11,500 other words in a vocabulary roughly 38 times bigger than that of a tabloid newspaper); who claims his favourite writer is Tacitus (he approves of the short, precise sentences), and who has pioneered the use of “the Oxford comma” in modern grammar.

The entirety of Ripley’s encomium can be found here.