The Next to Die — Gerald Verner

When a body is found under a pile of gravel at the foot of a bank, it looks as if the storm the previous night blew a cart-load over just as the man was passing underneath. But amateur criminologist Trevor Lowe notices that the soles of the dead man's shoes are caked with cigarette ash: clearly he never walked to the gravel site, but was carried there. It is the first of a whole series of murders. Can Lowe unmask the criminal - or will he be the next to die?