The jewel that was ours /

Oxford copper Morse drinks more beer than he should, and he is drawn to women with the same weakness. He likes Wagner and crosswords, and he especially likes to make Sergeant Lewis pay for the beer. Lewis doesn't much mind because beneath Morse's slovenly bachelor exterior, the expansive bum planted firmly on a bar stool, lies a trigger-sharp mind, one that the plodding Lewis occasionally points in the right direction. In his ninth adventure, Morse is faced with the theft of a valuable artifact, the murder of a museum official, and the demands of a bus load of American tourists. Morse must work through a series of interlocking alibis, sorting out in the process the philandering victim's conquest-filled past. The watertight solution is as tricky as it is dazzling. PBS watchers, veterans of several previous Inspector Morse series, will also get to enjoy this one onscreen, as the teleplay was created before the novel. It's a superb mystery, whether in print or on video. ~--Peter Robertson

Chief Inspector Morse is dispatched to Oxford to untangle a plot involving the death of the American who intended to donate a fabulous jewel to the Ashmolean Museum. Soon after, the professor who is hyping the receipt of the jewel is murdered, and the plot takes off on a giddy series of revelations tied to the professor's assorted drunken sprees and amorous liaisons among the Oxford elite. Unfortunately, the story seems overedited, and the reading by popular British actor Edward Woodward leaves much to be desired. Woodward plays a great Inspector Morse, and some of his other British voices are wittily done. However, every American voice sounds alike; read: Southern hick. Woodward's female voices are uniformly squeaky. Nonetheless, the story will keep listeners guessing, and Dexter is in top form. For large mystery collections.-Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L., Columbus, N.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

For Dexter, a decidedly conventional outing, this one involving an American tour group and their Oxford guides and Inspector Morse's investigation into who among them pilfered the Wolvercote Jewel, a Saxon buckle that Mrs. Laura Stratton was planning on presenting to the Ashmolean Museum. Laura dies in her hotel tub; the philandering tour-lecturer, Dr. Thomas Kemp, is found murdered; and Morse and sidekick Lewis are kept busy checking alibis, train schedules, romantic entanglements, and past tragedies. Discarding several pet theories that prove to be incontrovertibly flawed, Morse eventually--in an old-fashioned gathering-of-the-suspects confrontation scene--nitpicks his way to a solution, then retires to the King's Arms for a pint of Flowers Bitter. Based partly on a storyline that Dexter wrote for the PBS series, this effort succeeds best in the small details--e.g., the use of a hearing aid as a clue--while being somewhat slapdash and sketchy in its character analysis and dialogue. Less impressive than the eight previous Morse stories, and far less adroit than Dexter's handling of The Wench is Dead.