Inspector Morse returns when a schoolgirl from a wealthy family is missing. Morse is convinced she has been murdered and his investigations reveal that there is more going on at her exclusive school than meets the eye. But before he has unravelled the mystery, he finds another murder on his hands.

"It was Chief Superintendent Strange's opinion that too little progress had been made by the Thames Valley Police since the discovery of a corpse in a North Oxford flat. The victim had been killed by a single stab wound to the stomach. Yet the police had no weapon, no suspect, no motive. But within days of taking over the investigation, Chief Inspector Morse and Detective Sergeant Lewis uncover startling new information about the life and death of...

Inspector Morse investigates the murder of a guest at a New Year's Eve costume party and finds that all of the suspects seem to have vanished.

Chief Inspector Morse, the irascible, brilliant detective of the Thames Valley Police, returns in six tales of detection, accompanied by five self-contained mysteries ranging in setting from a prison cell to a hotel lounge in the American Midwest.