Death Treads Softly - George Bellairs

When a man disappears from the Isle of Man and reappears in London with no memory, Littlejohn is called to escort him home, only to find him shot dead 24 hours later. A week after Finlo Crennell, ex-harbourmaster of Castletown, is reported missing, he is found wandering the streets of London. Suffering from memory loss, he has no recollection of where he has been or how he came to be in London. He is escorted back to the Island by Chief Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard. Less than twenty-four hours later, Crennell is found brutally murdered with a bullet hole though his head. Littlejohn assumes the case, but soon has a second murder investigation on his hands. A bankrupt farmer, Charlie Cribbin, has been murdered in a desolate house on the moors, once again with a single bullet to the head. How are the two men connected? And what happened to Crennell during the week he was missing? Littlejohn must connect the dots if he has any hope of tracking down the killer before he strikes again... Death Treads Softly was first published in 1956.