The Jewel That Was Ours is the ninth novel in the Oxford-set detective series from Colin Dexter. As portrayed by John Thaw in ITV's Inspector Morse.

He looked overweight around the midriff, though nowhere else, and she wondered whether perhaps he drank too much. He looked weary, as if he had been up most of the night conducting his investigations . . .

For Oxford, the arrival of twenty-seven American tourists is nothing out of the ordinary . . . until one of their number is found dead in Room 310 at the Randolph Hotel.

It looks like a sudden – and tragic – accident. Only Chief Inspector Morse appears not to overlook the simultaneous theft of a jewel-encrusted antique from the victim's handbag. Two days later, a naked and battered corpse is dragged from the River Cherwell. A coincidence? Maybe. But this time Morse is determined to prove the link . . .

The Jewel That Was Ours is followed by the tenth Inspector Morse book, The Way Through the Woods.

Traditional crime writing at its best; the kind of book without which no armchair is complete * Sunday Times *
No one constructs a whodunit with more fiendish skill than Colin Dexter * Guardian *
Dexter has created a giant among fictional detectives * The Times *
A character who will undoubtedly retain his place as one of the most popular and enduring of fictional detectives -- P. D. James * Sunday Telegraph *
The writing is highly intelligent, the atmosphere melancholy, the effect haunting * Daily Telegraph *
The triumph is the character of Morse * Times Literary Supplement *
Colin Dexter’s superior crime-craft is enough to make lesser practitioners sick with envy * Oxford Times *
[Morse is] the most prickly, conceited and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot * New York Times Book Review *

Colin Dexter graduated from Cambridge University in 1953 and moved to Oxford in 1966, where he lived until his death in 2017. His first novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, was published in 1975. There are now thirteen novels in the series, of which The Remorseful Day is, sadly, the last. He won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Silver Dagger twice, and the CWA Gold Dagger for The Wench is Dead and The Way Through the Woods. In 1997 he was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature, and in 2000 was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. The Inspector Morse novels have been adapted for the small screen with huge success by Carlton/Central Television, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately. Spin-offs from Dexter’s much-loved novels also include the popular series, Lewis, featuring Morse’s former sergeant, Robbie Lewis, and Endeavour, a prequel starring the young Endeavour Morse.