I’m impressed! Glad you enjoyed the puzzle when you got round to it.

Do try to get hold of some Morse DVDs!

Oddly, I knew nothing about the theme’s subject except that there is an Inspector Morse, but by the time I went and read up on him at wikipedia, I had already solved all the themed clues! Talk about fair cluing! DEXTER came from knowing sinister means left; LEWIS had to that once I had the W, etc. Of course there were quite a few penciled letters until the article confirmed how some of the words “fit in”.

As far as the SHUBUNKIN controversy, I can live with “a” = I, but would have preferred “one fish” in the clue.

Thanks for the blog and parsing USES for me, Eileen, and thanks Boatman for a very enjoyable murder mystery!

Sorry for misunderstanding you and thanks for your alternative suggestions. They’re rather tortu[r]ous – I’m glad I didn’t have to blog them!

20D: Remove Stetson, capture nearly seductive woman, will make shoot dead

Remove Stetson = DOFF, nearly seductive woman = [V]AMP; capture means include, so leading to the answer DAMP OFF.
DAMP OFF does indeed make a shoot, as well as a seed dead. Damp Off is a verb in Collins.

Then we could have the alternative lovely clue for 19A as follows:

19A: Despicable person went around with nark initially, taken in by “Brains” – right mystery.

Despicable person is a HOUND; went around is an anagrind, leading to HODUN. nark initially is N. Brains is meant to deceive you about a gangster, but means “WIT” Use the indicator ‘taken in’ and you get WHODUNNIT. A police ‘mystery’ story written by Dexter – which means Right, as you undoubtedly know.

I hope you don’t think I’m being silly!

Love to converse with you again.

Yes, I’m here – it’s good to hear from you and I hope we’ll hear more.

[Note to all [would-be] commenters: bloggers receive emails of all comments on their blogs, so it’s never too late!]

I’m impressed by your alternative entry for 19ac – that would have been wonderful! But I don’t think DAMP OFF [not an expression I'm aware of]] would have been a satisfactory alternative for BUMP OFF in the clue as it stands. ‘Bump off’ means to kill and a ‘bump off’ would be a ‘backstage sound effect’. I’ve only found [new to me] ‘damping off – a disease of seedlings: Chambers’, which might kill them off – but what about the ‘backstage sound effect’?

This was one of my favourite puzzles of the year. Morse is one of my literary heroes – how could he not be? – and then the TV adaptations, with the superb John Thaw [who else could it have been?] – and the music … – a Saturday night treat for so long! I’m sure you’re really enjoying watching those DVDs!

As I said, please drop in again!

My only reason for writing, apart to thank you, was to suggest that Boatman could have made this crossword even better if he had changed the answer for 20d to something like DAMP OFF rather than BUMP OFF. I know BUMP OFF is slightly linked to the theme, but if the former had been used instead then the letters for 19A would have been ?H?D?N?I?, and instead of the obscure SHUBUNKIN, we could have had WHODUNNIT, a far more apt word for the puzzle.

Maybe I should be a compiler!!

I look forward to your future blogs, as I learn more.

‘And, as I’ve said, I think there’s nothing wrong in cluing the American spelling of a word by giving ‘US’ as the definition!’

No, nothing wrong in terms of cluing per se, but I think I feel about filling the grid with American spellings the way I do trade marks, abbreviations and ‘noises’ such as ‘splosh’ and ‘oof’ (possibly not those two examples, but they are two which have come to mind), which sometimes appear. It just smacks to me of desperation to fit any old thing into the space provided, given the crossing letters.

But, as I said above, I don’t wish to complain about this puzzle – my quibbles are minor ones in a puzzle which I enjoyed solving. I just think that if there is something which sets Boatman’s puzzles above the other Guardian setters, I must be missing it.

“As a relatively inexperienced solver this was the perfect level of difficulty for me.”

Wow – well done! Hope to hear from you again.

Hi Caretman

Yes, read the books – excellent! – but you must also watch John Thaw – surely [for me, anyway] sublime casting!