The Dark Lady — Sally Spencer

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend will have to rely on his observational gifts to have a ghost of chance in solving his latest murder case.
 
The night after the mysterious appearance of the legendary Dark Lady on the road outside Westbury Park, a German efficiency expert, Gerhard Schultz, is found battered to death in the woods and Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is faced with his most puzzling case yet. Why did Schultz seem so frightened when on his colleagues mentioned the legend of the Dark Lady? Did the workers at the BCI chemical factory -- many of whom are known to hate the Germans -- have anything to do with his death? How could Fred Foley, the tramp whose bloodstained overcoat was found close to the scene of the crime, have completely disappeared? And is this murder connected with one which occurred in Liverpool nearly twenty years earlier?
 
“A very successful British procedural, nicely complicated by leftovers from both local lore and the war.” -- Library Journal
 
“Excellent work from a too-little-known author.” -- Booklist