Cracking Cryptic Crosswords Colin Dexter (Offox Press, £7.99)
Crossword books are two-a-penny, but not many include a new Inspector Morse mystery. It’s not really a mystery, but an exchange between the Chief Inspector and his sidekick, Sergeant Lewis, in which Morse explains in his superior way how to solve the remaining clues in Lewis’s crossword.
Dexter, Morse’s creator — who for 15 years compiled The Oxford Times’s cryptic crossword — is a much more patient teacher, and sets out, chapter by chapter, the different types of clue and how to solve them.
As someone who occasionally tries the easier cryptic crosswords, I was stumped by most of Dexter’s list of his favourite clues, but he helpfully provides the answers. There is also — oh joy! — a new Dexter crossword in which all the clues relate to Lewis and Morse. Dexter, 79, says in the introduction that he was persuaded by friends to write the book “before my light goes out for ever”. Publisher Jackie Gray (nee Rosenthal) had the idea for the book after meeting Dexter on a train, where he solved the Times crossword in the 15 minutes between Oxford and Didcot.
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