Last Seen Wearing is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the second novel in the Inspector Morse series.

The novel was dramatised by Thomas Ellice for the television series, first transmitted in 1988. In 1994, it was dramatised by Guy Meredith for BBC Radio 4.

Synopsis [edit]

A man, later known to be Donald Phillipson, goes for an interview in Oxford to be headmaster of a school, later known to be the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School in Oxford. At the bus stop a girl gets into conversation with him and later seduces him. She turns out to be a girl from the school, Valerie Taylor, and a year later she goes missing.

Two years after that Inspector Morse picks up the case following a road accident in which Chief Inspector Ainley was killed. A mysterious letter arrives apparently from Valerie, but Morse is convinced Valerie must be dead and tries to find out what happened on the day she disappeared. She went home from school for lunch and was last seen by a lollipop man carrying a bag. Morse discovers she was pregnant and suspects she had been sent off for an abortion.

The plot thickens when Reginald Baines, another teacher at the school, is found murdered at his house near Oxford Station. Three suspicious characters had been near his house—Mrs Phillipson, Valerie Taylor’s mum, seen wearing her distinctive cherry coloured coat, and David Acum, a French teacher who had taught Valerie’s last lesson. Morse also suspects Acum’s wife, but rejects this when he discovers she is living in North Wales and does not drive.

Publication history [edit]

• 1976, London: Macmillan ISBN 0-333-19245-1, Pub date April 1976, Hardback

Radio play [edit]

In 1994 the BBC Radio 4 play Last Seen Wearing dramatised from the novel by Guy Meredith had John Shrapnel playing Morse and Robert Glenister as Lewis, with Miles Anderson as Donald Phillipson, Melinda Walker as Sheila Phillipson, Donald Sumpter as George Taylor, Frances Jeater as Gwen Taylor, Terence Edmond as Reginald Baines, Tamsin Greig as Valerie Taylor, John Hartley as Chief Supt. Strange, and Emily Woof as Versatile Vera. The play was directed by Ned Chaillet.^[1]

Sources, references, external links [edit]

• Bishop, David, The Complete Inspector Morse: From the Original Novels to the TV Series London: Reynolds & Hearn (2006) ISBN 1-905287-13-5
• Bird, Christopher, The World of Inspector Morse: A Complete A-Z Reference for the Morse Enthusiast Foreword by Colin Dexter, London: Boxtree (1998) ISBN 0-7522-2117-5

1. ^ BBC - Inspector Morse - Last Seen Wearing

This article about a crime novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e