Book Review: The Way Through the Woods

A pretty interesting mystery. Being my first attempt at reading at a Colin Dexter novel, that too which had won the 1992 Gold Dagger for the Best Crime Novel, I was quite attracted to its English style of writing. Chief Inspector Morse is a very quirky character I have come across so far (he has a penchant for music, poetry, art, classics, classic cars and cryptic crossword puzzles, and relies on his intuition to get the killer), but makes for a good detective!

The plot about finding a missing Swedish Maiden opens on a very curious note, though it gets very complicated with too many characters and sub-plots thrown in. But nevertheless, it manages to sustain interest in some way or the other while progressing towards a satisfactory end (a little surprising as well, if I may add).

On the flip side, I found it to be losing its briskness at times, with too many discursions involving women, booze, pornography etc. For a police investigation, there seems to be less or no action at all; looks like Dexter wanted to create a Sherlock out of Morse. But having said that, I wouldn't mind catching  up with the other twelve investigations carried out by this outre spelling-mistake loathing tec!