Something in the Air — Richard Hernaman Allen

Briefly seconded to a Purchase Tax office in London's East End, Nick Storey comes across evidence of a criminal organisation which includes loan-sharking, extortionate insurance and huge rent increases on properties previously owned by West Docklands Council, but offloaded to a dubious property company in suspicious circumstances. Believing the local police and press to be bought off, Rosemary and he track down the councillors involved in the shady deal. But when in the course of his "day job," Nick meets a lawyer who is plainly acutely nervous at seeing him, he realises he has a way to get the key to what has been going on. However, having to meet a gangster in an East End park and Rosemary requiring a weapon to keep them safe suggests sorting things out becomes far from straightforward. "Something in the air" is the seventh book published in a series of detective stories set in Customs & Excise by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.