DEXTER, Colin

“You sit down with the crossword each morning over a boiled egg and you try to finish it before you finish the egg. And if you do so, then you get the feeling that the day has started off awfully well.”

Although Norman Colin Dexter is always thought of in conjunction with Oxford and its colleges, he only moved there in 1966 when in his mid thirties, after his growing deafness forced him to retire from teaching.  He was born in Stamford, gained his degree from Cambridge and spent his career as a teacher in the Midlands.  From 1966 until his retirement in 1988, he worked as Assistant Secretary of the Delegacy of Local Examinations, and whilst on a family holiday in Wales he started writing what was to become Last Bus to Woodstock in which he introduced the crossword loving Wagner enthusiast that is Inspector Morse.   From the first book, published in 1975, to the last published in 1999, Dexter wrote thirteen Inspector Morse novels.  Their popularity was increased when Morse was televised in 1987 with John Thaw in the title role and again in the two spin-off series Lewis and Endeavour. 

Dexter has won several awards for his Morse novels by the Crime Writer’s Association and in 2000 was presented with an OBE.

Please scroll down to see our current stock of first editions by Colin Dexter.