As a first time Morse reader, who has since read all of the novels, I found this book one of the most satisfying I have ever read. As a bookworm, I relish it when I have found a genuine, compulsive, page-turner of a book (note the Oxford comma). I had seen many of the TV films, so knew the characters, and, though there are only 13 novels (14 if you count the short-story collection, I don't) to 33 films, they are the kind you can read over and over again.
An interesting point in this book was that Colin Dexter takes into account what happens in between novels. To clarify, The Way Through The Woods was published in 1993, two years after The Jewel That Was Ours, in which time two series of Inspector Morse had been shown on ITV. Having recently seen both 'Promised Land' and 'The Death of the Self', neither of which were novels, I noticed something that, had it been absent, would grind at the eyes and ears of die hard fans. Dexter mentions that, hithero to the events in 'The Way Through The Woods', Lewis's only travel abroad had been (in addition to a single afternoon in a Calais supermarket) three weeks in Australia and two weeks in Italy. I consider this a compliment from Mr Dexter to those who both read his novels and watch the television films, which they inspired, as he knows that we would notice, was this left out.
Other than this, I would consider this the best Morse book of them all.