This is my third and final Morse book, at least for a while. After three in a row, I got kind of tired of him.
Here, we’re dealing with the Oxford Foreign Examinations Syndicate. It’s a group that handles school exams all over the world, including the Persian Gulf (that may be important). The book starts with a disagreement about who will be joining the syndicate, and somehow the rebel of the group reverse-psychologys them into hiring a guy they don’t really want: Nicholas Quinn.
Part of the problem (so they say) is that Quinn is functionally deaf, which frustrates some of the older Syndicate members. But he’s not a problem for long, because he’s murdered. All of the staff are suspects, as well as a neighbor (was there an affair with the pregnant wife?). Also featuring heavily is a porno movie called The Nymphomaniac, that it seems everyone went to see the day of the movie. No, seriously.
Yet again, Morse screws up the investigation over and over, until he finally gets it right. He has a habit of doing that. I’m guessing the other books are the same. Guess I’ll go back and watch the show, get the bad taste of the books out of my mouth.