The Way Through The Woods

Vacationing Chief Inspector Morse's eye is caught by a Times story about an
anonymous poem evidently referring to the year-old disappearance of Swedish
student Karin Eriksson. A lively, densely allusive correspondence analyzing
hints in the poem eventually takes Morse (The Jewel That Was Ours, 1992, etc.)
to the Oxford town of Wytham, where a body is indeed discovered. But then the
real surprises in this captivating tale begin, as the evidence of the corpse, a
telltale roll of film found nearby, and the ring of amateur pornographers
implicated in the murder obstinately refuse to confirm Morse's most elementary
assumptions. Honest detection, illicit sex, puns and anagrams galore, Morse's
trademark drinking and dour byplay