The Remorseful Day
The Remorseful Day is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the last novel in the Inspector Morse series.
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Colin Dexter |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Inspector Morse series, #13 |
| Genre | crime novel |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
Publication date | 15 September 1999 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 384p. |
| ISBN | 0-333-76157-X |
| OCLC | 319809285 |
| Preceded by | Death Is Now My Neighbour |
Title
The title derives from a line in the poem "XVI – (How clear, how lovely bright)", from More Poems, by A. E. Housman, a favourite poet of Dexter and Morse:
- "Ensanguining the skies
- How heavily it dies
- Into the west away;
- Past touch and sight and sound
- Not further to be found,
- How hopeless under ground
- Falls the remorseful day."
Plot
Morse tries to solve the unsolved murder of Yvonne Harrison, as his health deteriorates.
Harrison, a nurse, has inspired romantic attachment in Morse during an earlier (and separate) illness, and he has written to her about it. She is a sharer of her favours; recipients, including her daughter's lover, are serially suspect.
His superintendent has found Morse's letter among crime-scene evidence but has sequestered it.
Morse dies of acute myocardial infarction; his last words are "Thank Lewis for me."
Wagner's Parsifal accompanies the final scene.
Publication history
- 1999: London: Macmillan ISBN 0-333-76157-X, Pub date 15 September 1999, Hardback
See also
- "The Remorseful Day" The TV adaptation of the novel
Sources, references, external links
- Bishop, David, The Complete Inspector Morse: From the Original Novels to the TV Series London: Reynolds & Hearn (2006) ISBN 1-905287-13-5