Death and the Joyful Woman — Ellis Peters

Alfred Armiger had laid his clever, vulgar hands on a beautiful old Tudor house and turned it into The Jolly Barmaid -- the latest addition to his chain of super road-houses. Then someone lays their hands on Armiger: he is found brutally beaten to death.

And there is no shortage of people who wanted him dead, as Detective Sergeant George Felse soon discovers. After sifting through the suspects and the few shreds of evidence available, he finally makes an arrest.

But to Dominic Felse, George's young son, Kitty Norris represents everything that is admirable in life. His certainty of her innocence in the crime drives him to take an alternative line of action to that of his father; one that forces him, at sixteen, to measure up to some unexpected and dangerous consequences...