(1988) Hamish Macbeth #03; Death of an Outsider; by M.C. Beaton; read by David Monteath

IT’S A WONDER SOMEONE DIDN’T MURDER WILLIAM MAINWARING LONG AGO.
Stationed in the insular Scottish village of Cnothan, Scottish police Constable Hamish Macbeth is called in to investigate the haunted house of abrasive English newcomer William Mainwaring and finds the case complicated by Mainwaring’s gruesome murder and by the close-mouthed lack of cooperation on the part of the victim’s neighbors. Nobody in the Scottish town of Cnothan had liked the abrasive Englishman, and now that he’s been murdered, nobody much minds. Constable Hamish Macbeth’s hard luck is that he happens to be on temporary duty in this cloistered Highlands village when the killer strikes.
The most hated man in the most dour town in Scotland is sleeping with the fishes, or – more accurately – dumped into a tank filled with crustaceans. All that remain of the murdered victim are his bones. But after the lobsters are shipped off to Britain’s best restaurants, the whole affair quickly lands on the plate of Constable Hamish Macbeth. And he has his work cut out for him, dragging from Mainwaring’s close-mouthed neighbors enough facts to start solving this peculiar case.
But Hamish is crafty, and with practiced aplomb he slowly extracts from the locals a scandalous tale of illicit romance, secret vices, real-estate wheeling and dealing, even witchcraft-all so unbelievable that it can only be true.
Exiled with his dog, Towser, to the dreary outpost of Cnothan, Macbeth sorely misses his beloved Lochdubh, his formerly beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, and his days of doing nothing but staring at the sheep grazing in a nearby croft. Now the lawman has to contend with a detective chief inspector who wants the modus operandi hushed up, a dark-haired lass who has an ulterior motive to seduce him, and a killer who has made mincemeat of his victim-and without doubt will strike again.

source