A Secret Singing — Roy Lewis

Solicitor Charles Lendon wasn't exactly the most popular person in the small town of Canthorpe. The ruthless pursuit of his career and the local ladies, and the closure of the right of way through his land, had made him many enemies. So when he was found at the Old Mill with a steel skewer in his heart there was no shortage of suspects.
The skeletal Inspector Crow, who has already appeared in A Lover Too Many and Error of Judgment, arrives from Scotland Yard to find the local police still unsuccessfully investigating another murder - the brutal killing in Kenton Wood of a nine-year-old girl, a direct result of Lendon's closure of the right of way. Could there be a connection between the two killings? Certainly, many people had blamed Lendon for the child's death, and the child's father had sworn revenge.
Gradually Inspector Crow discovers that several of those closest to Lendon had good reason to hate- and perhaps murder him: his mistress! housekeeper; her mentally unstable brother; a former legal colleague; even the boy-friend of his attractive articled clerk, Cathy Tennant.

Roy Lewis has once again produced a skilfully plotted tale that keeps the reader continually in suspense,