The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn / Service of All The Dead(1979)

Colin Dexter

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

Morse had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements concerning times of death seemed so disconcertingly vague.
The newly appointed member of the Oxford Examination Syndicate was deaf, provincial and gifted. Now he is dead…
And his murder, in his North Oxford home, proves to be the start of a formidably labyrinthine case for chief Inspector Morse, as he tries to track down the killer through the insular and bitchy world of the Oxford colleges…

Service of All the Dead

The sweet countenance of reason greeted Morse serenly when he woke, and told him that it would be no bad idea to have a quiet look at the problem itself before galloping off to a solution.
Chief Inspector Morse was alone among the congregation in suspecting continued unrest in the quiet parish of St. Frideswide’s.
Most people could still remember the churchwarden’s murder. A few could still recall the murderer’s suicide. Now even the police had closed the case. Until a chance meeting among the tombstones reveals startling new evidence of a conspiracy to deceive…