Inspector Morse Investigates Mysterious Deaths in Jericho

Jericho is a down-at-the-heels residential area of Oxford, England. One night at a party, Chief Inspector Morse of the Oxford Homicide Division meets an attractive resident of Jericho named Anne Scott. There's clearly some chemistry between the two of them, but before anything can happen that night, Morse is called away to a murder investigation. Anne gives him her address and he thinks of her from time to time, but she's a married woman, and so he decides not to pursue her.

A few months later, Morse is in the neighborhood on another matter. He still has her address and, on an impulse, he decides to stop by. He gets no answer when he knocks on the door and is somewhat surprised to find the door unlocked. He steps into the home and calls her name but gets no response. He leaves and is shocked to hear later that evening that Anne had been home when he called. Unfortunately, she'd been hanging from her kitchen ceiling, an apparent suicide.

A coroner's inquest confirms the suicide verdict, but Morse is troubled by it. Even though it's not his case, he begins to poke around at the edges of it and soon finds tangled threads leading everywhere. Then one of Anne's neighbors is murdered and Morse is charged with leading an investigation into the mysterious deaths of Jericho.

This is another very good entry in the Inspector Morse series, even though the reader does have to get beyond the unbelievable coincidence of the fact that Anne Scott dies on the very day that Morse finally decides to come visiting. But it's fun to watch Morse at work, puzzling out secrets that no one else can divine and fans of the series won't want to miss this one.