{"product_id":"the-remorseful-day-isbn-9780804119542","title":"The Remorseful Day","description":"For a year, the murder of Mrs. Yvonne Harrison at her home in Oxfordshire had baffled the Thames Valley CID. The manner of her death--her naked handcuffed body left lying in bed--matched her reputation as a women of adventuresome sexual tastes. The case seemed perfect for Inspector Morse. So why has he refused to become involved--even after anonymous hints of new evidence, even after a fresh murder? Sgt. Lewis's loyalty to his infuriating boss slowly turns to deep distress as his own investigations suggest that Mrs. Harrison was no stranger to Morse. Far from it. Never has Morse performed more brilliantly than in this final adventure, whose masterly twists and turns through the shadowy byways of passion grip us to the death. . . .\"Fascinating . . . Memorable . . . [A] sweetly rueful conclusion to a revered series.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The Washington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"IMPECCABLY PLOTTED . . . A series that raised the bar for genre writing. Not since Nero Wolfe has a detective of Morse's ratiocinative skills, refined tastes, and tetchy temperament held court in such a magisterial fashion.\"\u003cbr\u003e--The New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"THE PLOT IS FLAMBOYANTLY CLEVER: even the most minor characters are bizarre and intriguing. Long after his swan song, Morse will be missed.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Los Angeles TimesColin Dexter lives in Oxford, England. He has won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding achievements in crime literature--the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Edgar Award. This is the thirteenth and final Inspector Morse novel.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou holy Art, when all my hope is shaken,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd through life's raging tempest I am drawn,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou make my heart with warmest love to waken,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if into a better world reborn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(From An Die Musik, translated by Basil Swift)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eApart (of course) from Wagner, apart from Mozart's compositions for the\u003cbr\u003eclarinet, Schubert was one of the select composers who could\u003cbr\u003eoccasionally transport him to the frontier of tears. And it was\u003cbr\u003eSchubert's turn in the early evening of Wednesday, July 15, 1998,\u003cbr\u003ewhen--The Archers over--a bedroom-slippered Chief Inspector Morse was to\u003cbr\u003ebe found in his North Oxford bachelor flat, sitting at his ease in Zion\u003cbr\u003eand listening to a Lieder recital on Radio 3, an amply filled tumbler of\u003cbr\u003epale Glenfiddich beside him. And why not? He was on a few days' furlough\u003cbr\u003ethat had so far proved quite unexpectedly pleasurable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorse had never enrolled in the itchy-footed regiment of truly\u003cbr\u003eadventurous souls, feeling (as he did) little temptation to explore the\u003cbr\u003eremoter corners even of his native land, and this principally because he\u003cbr\u003ecould now imagine few if any places closer to his heart than Oxford--the\u003cbr\u003ecity which, though not his natural mother, had for so many years\u003cbr\u003eperformed the duties of a loving foster parent. As for foreign travel,\u003cbr\u003elong faded were his boyhood dreams that roamed the sands round\u003cbr\u003eSamarkand; and a lifelong pterophobia still precluded any airline\u003cbr\u003ebookings to Bayreuth, Salzburg, Vienna--the trio of cities he sometimes\u003cbr\u003ethought he ought to see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVienna . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe city Schubert had so rarely left; the city in which he'd gained so\u003cbr\u003elittle recognition; where he'd died of typhoid fever--only thirty-one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot much of an innings, was it--thirty-one?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorse leaned back, listened, and looked semicontentedly through the\u003cbr\u003efrench window. In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde had spoken of\u003cbr\u003ethat little patch of blue that prisoners call the sky; and Morse now\u003cbr\u003econtemplated that little patch of green that owners of North Oxford\u003cbr\u003eflats are wont to call the garden. Flowers had always meant something to\u003cbr\u003eMorse, even from his schooldays. Yet in truth it was more the\u003cbr\u003enomenclature of the several species, and their context in the works of\u003cbr\u003ethe great poets, that had compelled his imagination: fast-fading\u003cbr\u003eviolets, the globed peonies, the fields of asphodel . . .  Indeed Morse\u003cbr\u003ewas fully aware of the etymology and the mythological associations of\u003cbr\u003ethe asphodel, although quite certainly he would never have recognized\u003cbr\u003eone of its kind had it flashed across a Technicolor screen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was still true though: as men grew older (so Morse told himself) the\u003cbr\u003edelights of the natural world grew ever more important. Not just the\u003cbr\u003eflowers, either. What about the birds?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMorse had reached the conclusion that if he were to be reincarnated (a\u003cbr\u003eprospect which seemed to him most blessedly remote), he would register\u003cbr\u003eas a part-time Quaker and devote a sizeable quota of his leisure hours\u003cbr\u003eto ornithology. This latter decision was consequent upon his\u003cbr\u003erealization, however late in the day, that life would be significantly\u003cbr\u003eimpoverished should the birds no longer sing. And it was for this reason\u003cbr\u003ethat, the previous week, he had taken out a year's subscription to\u003cbr\u003eBirdwatching; taken out a copy of the RSPB's Birdwatchers' Guide from\u003cbr\u003ethe Summertown Library; and purchased a secondhand pair of 152\/1000m\u003cbr\u003ebinoculars (#9.90) that he'd spotted in the window of the Oxfam Shop\u003cbr\u003ejust down the Banbury Road. And to complete his program he had called in\u003cbr\u003eat the Summertown Pet Store and taken home a small wired cylinder packed\u003cbr\u003ewith peanuts--a cylinder now suspended from a branch overhanging his\u003cbr\u003egarden. From the branch overhanging his garden.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe reached for the binoculars now and focused on an interesting specimen\u003cbr\u003epecking away at the grass below the peanuts: a small bird, with a\u003cbr\u003egreyish crown, dark-brown bars across the dingy russet of its back, and\u003cbr\u003epaler underparts. As he watched, he sought earnestly to memorize this\u003cbr\u003eremarkable bird's characteristics, so as to be able to match its\u003cbr\u003evariegated plumage against the appropriate illustration in the Guide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlenty of time for that though.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe leaned back once more and rejoiced in the radiant warmth of\u003cbr\u003eSchwarzkopf's voice, following the English text that lay open on his\u003cbr\u003elap: \"You holy Art, when all my hope is shaken . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen, too, a few moments later, his mood of pleasurable melancholy was\u003cbr\u003eshaken by three confident bursts on a front-door bell that to several of\u003cbr\u003ehis neighbors sounded considerably over-decibeled, even for the\u003cbr\u003ehard-of-hearing.","brand":"Fawcett","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305258143973,"sku":"NP9780804119542","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780804119542.jpg?v=1767741209","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-remorseful-day-isbn-9780804119542","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}