The Wench is Dead

"I didn’t actually start reading the Morse books until the TV series, and I’m sure a lot of people came to the Morse books that way. Though I will confess I prefer Morse on screen to on the page. It’s certainly interesting to see how John Thaw (1942-2002), the actor who played Morse, influenced the development of the character. The character of Morse in the books changes over time once the TV series started, and he becomes a good deal grumpier. I think his car starts out as a Lancia and not a Jaguar too. Quite a lot of adjustments take place in the character, and that in itself, for another writer, is interesting to see—how one medium influences another. This is going to be slightly heretical, but I also think some of the episodes written by other people for the TV series are better than the books. Some of the Morse books are wonderful, but for the TV series they brought some amazing writers in and came up with some fantastic episodes that weren’t based on the books. “I’m surprised Oxford University had any teaching staff left after Dexter was finished” The reason I’ve chosen this particular book, The Wench is Dead , is that it’s completely different to the rest. It’s very like another favourite book of mine, The Daughter of Time , by Josephine Tey . That book has an Inspector Grant who’s ill in bed, and he gets interested in Richard III and the murder of the Princes in the Tower. I read it when I was quite young, and it changed my view of Richard III completely. I think that happens to everybody who reads The Daughter of Time . They all come out thinking, ‘The poor man has been hard done by!’ It’s exactly the same setup in The Wench is Dead . Morse has got one of his recurrent health problems and reads a book about a murder on the Oxford Canal. (I live on the Oxford Canal, and my garden backs onto it. When I first read the book, I didn’t, but that’s an additional draw now). It reads as if it is a real case, and it is based very closely on one. Dexter’s is set in 1859, and the one he bases it on was 20 years earlier, but a lot of it is taken from the real-life case. I just love that crossover and the Morse and the Josephine Tey setup. It’s very clever, and that’s the reason I chose it."