Book Review: The Secret of Annexe 3

The Inspector Morse series is an interesting entry in the mystery book cannon. Morse, who lives and works in Oxford, is the archetypal detective as outsider: a bachelor, he has no identifiable close friends, listens to opera in the dark, sits alone in a myriad of pubs, is brusque with everyone else on the force, and engages really only with the crossword compiler of The Times. His Watson is a Welshman named Lewis, whom we see buying drinks for his boss, doing the donkeywork and eating a daily ration of eggs and chips; and usually one step (at least) behind Morse.

The Secret of Annexe 3 is one of the least stellar entries in the series, with an unlikely crime committed by an unlikely pair, underpinned by an unlikely psychology. The setting is low (town), rather than high (University) Oxford during a rather loveless Christmas and New Year period - all of which is rather tawdry.

But why it is notable is that Morse, in the end, does not get his man (well, not completely anyway). Which makes it a relatively unsatisfying example of a mystery book, even if the author is merely attempting to subvert the genre, as Christie did famously with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Because why do we read them, if not for the satisfaction of the murderer being caught, of the detective's triumph, and of our complicity as readers in that success?

Which leads me to my point - why do I read mystery books? Is it this sense of  triumph in the resolution that draws me to them? Partly, I think it is, because I am left feeling distinctly deflated when the murderer eludes Morse. And with that resolution comes a sense of order, and the notion that the world has been righted.

But I feel that it is more than that. I also identify with the detectives in mystery books and possibly, subconsciously, want to be them - all seeing, all knowing, clever, fearless, confronting death and killers. But I also do not want to be them: odd, finicky Poirot; the alcoholic Dave Robicheaux; the divorced, slightly slovenly Inspector Wallander; Matt Scudder, alone and observing questionable morality on New York's mean streets. In isolation, I don't want to be any of them, but as a reader, I love all of them.

Is it the puzzle, then? The superior intellect that can untie the Gordian knot? Again, I'm not convinced. I'm not sure how most people read mystery books, but I am a somewhat passive reader of them: I don't try and solve the mystery as I go along, although I am glad when the solution is announced.

Am I Watson? Do I feel like Poirot's confessor, or Scudder's companion down the Deuce? Not really, because as much as these books take me to a different place, exotic, troublesome, I am able to remain grounded in my more prosaic reality: on the skytrain, in the library, between the sheets early on a Tuesday night, nothing on the telly.

Which leaves, I feel, murder, and human fascination with it. I can't do fantasy, struggle with comic novels, and like my literature best in the form of Dostoyevsky, underpinned with a good psychological killing or two.

Which is why I'll keep reading the Inspector Morse books, despite the anti-climatic entry that is The Secret of Annexe 3. Yes, I'm annoyed by the lack of resolution, yes I admire Morse's intellect and wit, yes I wish I was Lewis, yes Oxford sounds like an interesting place, yes there is a puzzle, but mostly yes, blood has been spilt, crime has been done, and the game is afoot: great stuff, as long as its only between the pages of a book.