The Five Bells and Bladebone — Martha Grimes

Antiques dealer Marshall Trueblood had finally haggled the owner of Watermeadows--a lush country estate near the little village of Long Piddleton--into parting with a beautiful rosewood desk. He hadn't bargained on the corpse stuffed inside.

The body belonged to the notorious philanderer Simon Lean. Richard Jury of Scotland Yard and his aristocratic sidekick, Melrose Plant, had no end of suspects. But Jury's best clue led to a London pub, the five Bells and Bladebone. There he would learn about Lean's liaison with a shady lady named Sadie, who might help solve the case--if she wasn't murdered first.