Dressed to Kill — Margaret Duffy

Nobody likes Mrs Pryce, a meddling and small-minded misery in the Bath square where she lives. Her neighbours are weary of her allegations, the latest being that someone is stealing her plants. Ex-Detective Sergeant Joanna Mackenzie, now a private investigator, is called in to catch the thief. She does not take to Mrs Pryce either but when the woman is found battered to death Joanna finds herself at the centre of the police investigation as she saw a man who may be the killer. Worse still, she has to work alongside her former colleague and old flame Detective Inspector James Carrick.

So which of Mrs Pryce's neighbours decided to silence her for complaints for good? Was it surly biker Harbutts who visited his girlfriend on the far side of the square? Colonel Moffatt, whose wartime experiences are said to have left him slightly unhinged? Or her nephew to get his hands on his aunt's money? When a nurse is mistaken for Joanna and killed it is clear that someone will stop at nothing to conceal the truth. Carrick discovers that all these crimes are connected with the recent theft of the priceless Chantbury Pyx