I had my manuscript typed up, with just the one heavily corrected and smudged carbon-copy, and asked around for the best bets among the publishing houses. Collins, Gollancz, and Macmillan, in that order, topped the list. I had no agent (still haven’t) and I posted the typescript to Collins—from whom, after a chivvying letter from me, I received a letter about four months later. It was a pleasantly argued letter of the kind that so many hopeful, budding authors have come to know only too well: an “if-ever-you-write-anything-else” kind of letter. A rejection letter. So, leaving out my second choice, I parcelled up Last Bus to Woodstock once more, and sent it to Macmillan, a publishing house with, as I learned, an increasingly prestigious crime-list.

Within 48 hours I received a phone call from the senior crime-editor there, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, asking me to get up to London post haste. He had read my novel and was prepared to publish it without further ado (and without alteration!) “warts and all.” Later I learned that he had been suffering from a serious bout of flu at the time, and had requested that any new stories should be brought to his bedside. Whether or not his illness was impairing his judgment in any way, I just don’t know. What I do know is that the gods were smiling benevolently on me that particular weekend. Incidentally, when I say that I have never had an agent, that is strictly true. But I have ever stuck with Macmillan. And for over thirty years now successive crime-editors—George Hardinge, Hilary Hale, Maria Rejt, and Beverley Cousins—have handled my literary affairs wonderfully well. I have been, let me repeat it, a very lucky writer.

How and why did Morse come to make it on TV?