Colin Dexter: Mystery/SuspenseUnlike most of the authors I like, Colin Dexter's work has been turned into excellent video renditions. The BBC has turned his novels into the Inspector Morse series seen here in the United States on PBS's Mystery program.Colin Dexter himself is notable for having attended Cambridge and having won the Ximines contest three years running. Ximines is a contest for writing clues for "cryptic" crossword puzzles, which are much more challenging than traditional crosswords. This should give you a clue to Dexter's writing. He is always playing some kind of game with the reader, and often there are wheels within wheels in the plot. In the tradition of other British mystery writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers and P.D. James, these focus less on violence and more on the clues. All of the Inspector Morse books are quite good. I have not seen anything by Colin Dexter that is not an Inspector Morse book, so you can pretty much pick up anything by him. But here is one of them that I liked.
The Silent World of Nicholas QuinnA deaf academic who designs English-as-a-foreign-language tests for Oxford is murdered. Inspector Morse with Lewis, his sergeant, must figure out the currents and cross-currents of politics within the tight-knit Oxford community in order to solve the murder.Paperback ISBN: 0-804-11487-0
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