He'd Rather Be Dead

The mayor of a seaside town is murdered, and a London police detective must sort through motives both political and personal . . .
 
Thanks to its mayor, Sir Gideon Ware, the quiet harbor town of Westcombe has turned into a crowded and rather garish seaside destination where visitors can come to escape the stress of wartime. When Ware collapses at a lavish luncheon, felled by strychnine, Inspector Littlejohn must travel from London to solve the seemingly inexplicable murder. Ware was surrounded by local bigwigs at his table—but that’s just the beginning of the suspect list, as Littlejohn untangles the rivalries, resentments, and corrupt dealings that permeate this picturesque but troubled community . . .
 
Praise for the Inspector Littlejohn mysteries
 
“Assured prose, well-drawn characters, and the atmosphere of 1940s wartime England . . . well worth the reader’s time.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Everything is quite comparable in tone to a really good Simenon.” —The New York Times
 
“Dryly ceremonious wit [that] shines from the very first page.” —Kirkus Reviews

George Bellairs was the pseudonym of Harold Blundell (1902–1985), an English crime author best known for the creation of Detective-Inspector Thomas Littlejohn. Born in Heywood, near Lancashire, Blundell introduced his famous detective in his first novel, Littlejohn on Leave (1941). A low-key Scotland Yard investigator whose adventures were told in the Golden Age style of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Littlejohn went on to appear in more than fifty novels, including The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge (1946), Outrage on Gallows Hill (1949), and The Case of the Headless Jesuit (1950).

In the 1950s Bellairs relocated to the Isle of Man, a remote island in the Irish Sea, and began writing full time. He continued writing Thomas Littlejohn novels for the rest of his life, taking occasional breaks to write standalone novels, concluding the series with An Old Man Dies (1980).