It took a while to get into the style of writing but I got there eventually.
It's the 1940's and the mayor of Westcombe, Sir Gideon Ware has made many enemies during his stay in the town. Which means once he has been murdered there are a long list of suspects. In comes Chief Inspector Littlejohn from Scotland Yard to process the evidence and determine the murderer.
A NetGalley free book. ( )

Scotland Yard Inspector Littlejohn is dispatched to the seaside English town of Westcombe to investigate the poisoning death of Sir Gideon Ware. Ware was the town's Mayor as well as its leading citizen. However, he was not well-liked, and no-one really grieves his sudden death (aside from his widow who makes a short cameo appearance). There's a long list of potential suspects for Littlejohn to interview, one which is murdered before being questioned. Regrettably, Littlejohn's usual sidekick DS Cromwell makes only a brief appearance late in the story. Despite that, Cromwell is able to unearth a crucial bit of information which helps put Littlejohn on a trail to the killer. The killer's identity is revealed in a denouement several chapters before the book's finish. The last chapters are used to explain a rather sad backstory of the villain.

There's plenty of local colour about Westcombe, a honky-tonk seaside resort developed to great profit by Ware. He's the big man in town and uses his position in cruel and selfish ways. He's the perfect murder victim in the style of the Golden Age crime novels. Westcombe itself plays a leading character role, portrayed as a holiday town of low morals and few redeeming features. It sports several oddball characters who play a minor role in the main mystery story. The town's Chief Constable emerges as someone with a past to hide and eventually faces a day of reckoning.

It's a satisfying traditional police procedural whodunit, a typical Inspector Littlejohn story. Written in 1945 it's an early entry (#8) in a long-running series. Easy to read it as a standalone.

Many thanks to Agora Books and Netgalley for providing a complementary ARC eBook for my independent review. ( )

Another case for D. I. Littlejohn.
This time a not very well liked Sir Gideon War has been murdered in front of guests at a dinner.
So there are many suspects.
My favourite story in this series so far. ( )

The unpopular Mayor of the seaside resort of Westcombe is poisoned at a lunch which is attended by many of his sworn enemies. The cause is not readily apparent as everyone has eaten and drunk the same things and no one is near enough to have done the deed. Needless to say Detective Inspector Littlejohn is called in by the Chief Constable. In the course of the investigation however,a second murder occurs in a fairground.
As usual the characters are eccentric and entertaining and the story itself has some good twists and turns. On the other hand Bellairs presents his readers with a solution and the killer's name at a quite early point in the book. Thus tension is lost and all that follows is of little interest. A bad fault in a story of this type and one which makes a fair-enough book in all other aspects,ultimately fail. ( )