Used book – Devices and Desires, P. D. James

While on holiday on the Norfolk coast, Inspector Dalgliesh intends to forget Scotland Yard for a while. He goes for walks, gets to know the local personalities, the director of the nearby nuclear power plant, the environmentalist who, from his caravan, leads the "resistance," and others. And he has no desire to concern himself with the strangler terrorizing the region.

But then, during a walk, he himself discovers a corpse bearing the strangler's "signature" - a particularly macabre mutilation. Yet, the criminal, we learn almost immediately, committed suicide before this last murder was carried out...