We talked for a while, the great Detective writer and I

about his work, the meaning of crime

in the fields of Oxfordshire

and the bounty involved with novel murder,

between the pages,

in one sentence, the last moment of a book’s life

should be that the suspect is named

with a gasp and then nothing

else to follow,

with perhaps the damning of yet another

advert or list of books that the voyeur,

the seer of slaughter and unlawful death,

must own, at least

to complete the collection of a writer’s life

and the hero, the heroine, the nark, the duty bound,

the law abiding, the law breaker, the thief, the scoundrel,

the victim

the dead

the ones left alive to suffer in their grief

or quietly pay homage to the fallen.

We talked for a while, He and I,

I was but a full stop,

He was my opening chapter.

 

In memory of Colin Dexter.

Ian D. Hall 2017.