Ever Endeavour

My house is full of books, most of which I’ll never read. Some were gifts that didn’t match my tastes but I can’t bring myself to toss. Others I know I should read, but don’t.

But there’s only one I bought with the specific intention never to read.

The title is "The Remorseful Day." The author is Colin Dexter; the protagonist is Inspector Morse. Chief Inspector Morse. Fans of the PBS television series “Mystery” may be familiar with Morse. This is him in a nutshell: Thames Valley, England, police official; brilliant and enigmatic; devotee of classical music, crossword puzzles and a well-pulled pint; chronic failure with women; thorn in the side for superiors; mentor and tormentor to junior partner, Sergeant Lewis (seen with him above); grumpy.

Endearing.

I got the chance to interview Dexter in 1993, while he was on a book tour in England for the paperback edition of his 10th book, “The Way Through the Woods.” I asked if he had lots of other Morse tales up his sleeve.

“Certainly not,” he said. “I have to struggle to get any ideas at all.’’ But, he added, “I know if I start, something will come.’’

Dexter added three novels. The last one I read, “Death Is Now My Neighbor,’’ revealed a long, jealously protected secret, the chief inspector’s first name: Endeavour.

A revelation of that nature should have been a clue to what lay ahead.

There’s precedent for authors killing off their detective creations, most famously Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s dispatching of Sherlock Holmes. The public was outraged, and so Doyle brought him back. Holmes lived on to retire and keep bees in Sussex, where for all we know he still is.

Dexter rejected any such riding-into-the-sunset.

“Morse never would have lasted in retirement,’’ he told an interviewer in 1999. “He had no lawn to mow. He would have gone spare. No, it’s better this way.’’

Better for Dexter, perhaps, whose health, I gather, has not been the best and on whom the writing came to take a physical toll. Not better for those of us who dearly miss the good, grumpy inspector.