The Riddle of the Third Mile

By: Colin Dexter

Narrated by: Samuel West

Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's Summary

The thought suddenly occurred to Morse that this would be a marvellous time to murder a few of the doddery old bachelor dons. No wives to worry about their whereabouts; no landladies to whine about the unpaid rents. In fact nobody would miss most of them at all....

By the 16th of July, the Master of Lonsdale was concerned but not yet worried.

Dr Browne-Smith had passed through the porter's lodge at approximately 8:15 a.m. on the morning of Friday, 11th July. And nobody had heard from him since.

Plenty of time to disappear, thought Morse. And plenty of time, too, for someone to commit murder...

©2017 Colin Dexter (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio

A touch of the Gothic

Rather more gore than I like, but intriguing, more than a little improbable. I’m always surprised Morse escapes disciplinary procedures, as he’s more outrageous than Rebus, who’s always in trouble with the high heid yins! But autres pays, autres mœurs! The Edinburgh polis presumably have stricter rules.
One good thing about Dexter is that he varies format and style (within the givens of “murder(s) >investigation>false trails>Morse gets there in the end, but Lewis does all the donkey work!”
Dexter didn’t write so many novels that he began to recycle old plots and themes, cf Christie, and the social milieu is varied, cf Sayers.
(I expect Morse would have taken me to task over punctuation in that last sentence!)
I don’t really believe in Morse’s failure to graduate because of an unhappy student love affair. It seems too much of a rationalisation, an excuse visible through that amazing instrument, the retrospectoscope, which isn’t always well focused.
Samuel West’s narration is excellent, as usual, no comic music hall accents- which drive those who speak with the genuine version to stamp on their phones in despair. It takes a really good actor to manage Welsh, Scots, London, Lancashire,etc.,convincingly and unemphatically.
He performs well, without turning the whole thing into an amateur dramatics melodrama, which some lesser narrators are wont to do. (Italian language audiobooks worst offenders.)

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

the riddle of the thitd mile

excellent! as alway, and very well narrated. look forward to listening to other morse books

Thoroughly enjoyablle

Would you consider the audio edition of The Riddle of the Third Mile to be better than the print version?

About as good as, though with Samuel West as narrator I think it does get better.

What does Samuel West bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

His narration is flawless. He does not overwhelm you with "acting", just enough for you to get the feel of the person. He does not try to be John Thaw, but you still recognize the character you know from the tv-series..

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

I just wish more authors would use Samuel West as narrator. Some narrators completely ruin a book so that I have had to return it.

A Convoluted Tale

As re title. A little muddled at times, too many twists and turns , and messy in construction. Not one of Colin Dexter's best.
A wonderful performance from Samuel West.