The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series of books is a classic of the genre, a part of the mystery novel canon, revered by millions of readers. I have never read any Morse novel, but I happened to find The Remorseful Day on my shelf. It is the last novel in the series, and I am afraid it will also be the last Colin Dexter book that I read. It is not the author's fault—he consequently follows his mystery prose aesthetics—but his writing style is definitely not my thing. Maybe if I started with the first novel in the series, things would turn out differently?

Not only do I find the writing unbearably chatty, but it also seems that the author's idea of suspense is to produce as long a series of plot twists as possible. From the very beginning of the novel, where we witness a naughty banter between a patient and his nurse, the author teases us with false leads and misleading suggestions. Readers who like plot twists will likely enjoy the novel. Even after revealing a super major plot twist at the end of the novel, the reader gets yet another major twist!

One practical thing that I learned from the novel is that the phrase "eleven plus two" is an anagram of "twelve plus one," which is a funny (and punny) tidbit; it also reminds me of operator overloading in object-oriented programming :) Also, it is altogether possible that the main reason for my dislike of the novel is that Chief Inspector Morse adores Richard Wagner—the only classical composer whose music I can't stand.

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