The Secret Of Annexe 3

A hotel annexe, a New Year party, a corpse, and Inspector Morse having exactly the sort of festive season one expects Inspector Morse to have.

The Secret of Annexe 3 is Colin Dexter in classic Oxford crime mode: clever, twisty, faintly melancholy, and full of people who appear to be telling the truth only in the technical sense that words are coming out of their mouths. What begins as a celebration soon becomes a puzzle, because in Morse’s Oxford even hospitality comes with concealed motives and suspicious room arrangements.

Dexter has great fun with disguise, identity, timing, and the social awkwardness of murder in a hotel. Morse, naturally, brings his usual blend of intelligence, impatience, cultured grumpiness, and a deeply unreliable relationship with other people’s explanations.

There is a lovely irony in the title. An annexe sounds so modest, so practical, so harmless. A place for overflow guests, storage, perhaps a disappointing buffet. But give Colin Dexter an annexe and he will find secrets in it, then make Morse suffer through them one clue at a time.

This good copy, as sold by Crappy Old Books, is ideal for readers of classic British crime, Inspector Morse, Oxford mysteries, and anyone who likes their detective fiction literate, devious, and just a little hungover after New Year.

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