Death Dues - Rafferty & Llewellyn British Mysteries, #11

A Little Laughter. A Little Mayhem. A Little MURDER... Another murder ...another little family difficulty. With his wife-to-be's wedding budget spiralling out of control, and his Superintendent demanding the swift resolution to the series of muggings of local loan sharks' collectors, DI Joe Rafferty is anticipating a long and trying week. And sure, enough, he isn't disappointed. When one John 'Jaws' Harrison is found with his skull caved in, in an alleyway backing on to rundown Primrose Avenue while on his way to collect debt repayments from the residents, Rafferty and his intellectual partner, Sergeant Dafyd Llewellyn, imagine the case will be easily solved.
Armed with a list of local debtors, they begin their investigations. But they hadn't counted on the conspiracy of silence amongst the residents -- most of whom had good reason to want Jaws dead. With the Super breathing down his neck and fiancée Abra sending his blood pressure to boiling point, Rafferty is forced to make some unorthodox decisions and stretch his intuitive powers to breaking point.
BOOKS IN THE RAFFERTY & LLEWELLYN BRITISH COZY MYSTERY SERIESDead Before Morning #1Down Among the Dead Men #2Death Line #3The Hanging Tree #4Absolute Poison #5Dying For You #6Bad Blood #7Love Lies Bleeding #8Blood on the Bones #9A Thrust to the Vitals #10Death Dues #11All the Lonely People #12Death Dance #13Deadly Reunion #14Kith and Kill #15Asking For It #16The Spanish Connection #17Game of Bones #18ABOUT THE SERIES: British Detective, Joe Rafferty, working-class lapsed Catholic, is cursed by coming from a family who thinks -- if he must be a copper -- he might at least have the decency to be a bent one.
When you add the middle-class, more moral than the Pope intellectual DS Dafyd Llewellyn to the brew the result is murder with plenty of laughs for us and plenty of angst for Rafferty.