INSPECTOR Morse author Colin Dexter is disappointed that TV chiefs have rewritten the detective's death for the small screen.

Mr Dexter, who lives in Banbury Road, north Oxford, ensured that Inspector Morse bowed out with a typical minimum of fuss in the final novel The Remorseful Day.

But TV bosses at Carlton have tried to inject more drama into the touching scene. The film will be shown in October.

A Carlton insider said: "The way it is done in the book would not suit the kind of climax we needed after all these years."

But Mr Dexter said: "The people who make these decisions are at the very top of their professions. There are, though, times when you wish they could have done it more faithfully to the novel." Towards the end of Mr Dexter's final novel, Morse suffers a heart attack in his Oxford flat and calls an ambulance.