The Curious Mister Jones — Bill Smith

The First Mortimer Jones Book: A cross between Miss Marple & Philip Marlowe but with a tongue-in-cheek style. Mortimer Jones is a middle aged nobody who works as the manager of an Antiquarian bookshop. He has lived with his maiden aunt ever since his mother died thirty years ago. It is the beginning of December and Jones has become suspicious that some rare books that a rather smelly and disheveled man is trying to sell him are stolen. When he investigates he witnesses what he believes may have been a murder. When the police won't believe him he lets the matter rest until more events begin to drag him into a web of extortion and murder.