The Lamorna Wink — Martha Grimes

With his good friend Richard Jury on a fool's errand in Northern Ireland, Melrose Plant tries in vain--to escape his aunt and his Long Piddleton lethargy by fleeing to Cornwall. There, high on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea, he rents a house--one furnished with tragic memories. But his Cornwallian reveries are tempered by the local waiter/cab driver/amateur magician. The industrious Johnny Wells seems unflappable until his beloved aunt disappears. Now, Plant is dragged into the disturbing pasts of everyone involved and a murder mystery that only Richard Jury can solve....