Daughters of Cain - Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter is a successful crime writer known for his series of novels based on the capabilities of a Detective Chief Inspector Morse. I had not read his books earlier so when a friend offered to lend a book, I was more than happy to try it out.

The Daughters of Cain is a whodunnit mystery where, an Oxford professor Felix McClure is found stabbed to death on a Sunday morning with no traces of the murder weapon nor any evidence of a murderer. Many suspects emerge over the course of the time, however, no evidence to pin it on.

The story is interesting and the writing egged me further on to find out what happens next however, somewhere half way through the novel, it was beginning to get tiresome. The length definitely needed editing. 

Another thing I noticed about the character development: it seemed like the author enjoyed fleshing out the characters and then suddenly lost interest. I would have loved to know more about Julia Stevens – one of the key characters in the story. There was also a tiny little love story that died before it had even formed well. Inspector Morse is an interesting character no doubt, but I felt he seemed to have given up on life (based on the story line, of course). Was this what the author intended? I don't know, it felt like I had reached the end of the series. I found out later it was the almost the end. (he wrote two more books after this novel in the Morse series)

I would have voted for this highly had the length been taken care of. Still, it isn’t a bad book at all. A light read that is needed especially when one is too tired to deal with serious stuff in life.