Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead (UK 2024)

From the Publisher:
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger award, The Wench is Dead is the eighth novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series. As portrayed by John Thaw in ITV's Inspector Morse.

That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre-skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse's muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks...

Early in the morning of the 22nd of June, 1859, the body of Joanna Franks was found floating at Duke's Cut along the Oxford Canal - an event which led to the trial and hanging of two suspected murderers.

A hundred and thirty years later Chief Inspector Morse is bedbound and recovering from a perforated ulcer at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital when he is handed an old book to read, one that recounts the trial of a murder aboard the Barbara Bray canal boat: the murder of Joanna Franks. Investigating the account of the trial, Morse begins to question whether the two men hanged were truly guilty and sets out to prove his suspicions from the confines of his hospital bed...

The Wench is Dead is followed by the ninth Inspector Morse book, The Jewel That Was Ours.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead. Pan, ISBN: 9781035005468 (May, 2024), 256 p., £10.99.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead (UK 2016)

From the Publisher:
The Wench is Dead is the eighth novel in Colin Dexter's Oxford-set detective series.

That night he dreamed in Technicolor. He saw the ochre-skinned, scantily clad siren in her black, arrowed stockings. And in Morse's muddled computer of a mind, that siren took the name of one Joanna Franks...

The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859.

At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse - though very much alive - was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.

As Morse begins his recovery he comes across an account of the investigation and the trial that followed Joanna Franks' death... and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent...

The Wench is Dead is followed by the ninth Inspector Morse book, The Jewel That Was Ours.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead. Pan, ISBN: 9781447299233 (May, 2016), 337 p., £8.99.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead (UK 2007)

From the Publisher:
The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5.30 am. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859.

At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse - though very much alive - was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.

As Morse begins his recovery he comes across an account of the investigation and trial that followed Joanna Franks' death ... and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent...

The Wench is Dead won the Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel of the year in 1989. It is the last of the novels to be adapted, and will probably be the last television addition to Carlton's Inspector Morse series,

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead. An Inspector Morse Mystery. Pan, ISBN: 0330450816 (May, 2007), 237 p., £6.99.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse - though very much alive - was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful. As Morse begins his recovery he comes across an account of the investigation and trial that followed Joanna Franks' death... and becomes convinced that the two men hanged for her murder were innocent...

The Inspector Morse novels have been adapted for the small screen, with huge success, in Carlton/Central Television's series starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately. The Wench is Dead is the last of the novels to be adapted, to be broadcast in November 1998.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead. Pan, ISBN: 0330313363 (July, 1991), 208 p., £5.99 (?).

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
Who lies in the grave?
An innocent victim?
A Shoeless temptress?

THE WENCH IS DEAD
Confined to his hospital bed with a temperamental ulcer, an impatient Inspector Morse sees his slow recuperation as a tedious prison term at best. Until he cracks open a dusty tome, Murder on the Oxford Canal, and from the pages of history uncovers a sensational case long forgotten. A young woman was drowned in 1859, and, after a fleeting trial, two men were hanged for the misdeed. But from all that Morse can gather, they were wrongly accused of rape and murder -- and died needlessly for a crime they did not commit. Now his hospital stay will have more than a touch of intrigue, as Inspector Morse intends to piece together the shattered past -- and set the scales of justice to right.

Chief Inspector Morse, Homicide Division, Oxford: a lonely middle-aged bachelor with a taste for Mozart, T. S. Eliot, and pints of bitter -- and an obsession with attractive women. As coarse as he is cunning, at times insufferable, and relentlessly inquisitive.

Colin Dexter: The Wench Is Dead. An Inspector Morse Mystery. Bantam Books, ISBN: 0553291203 (June, 1991), 194 p., $4.50.