The Price of Butcher's Meat (2008)

Though he's been nicked by a bomb, the Fat Man (a.k.a. Andy Dalziel, detective superintendent) will live for another book — that is, if he can survive his stay at the Avalon Clinic. For one thing, it's difficult to nip out for a pint in this small English seaside town. For another, bodies are turning up at an alarming rate, and the clinic director seems to be tied to all of them. Reginald Hill provides his usual deeply satisfying whodunit, but The Price of Butcher's Meat's structure — which intersperses 
e-mail messages with regular chapters — is a little confusing at first. Fans of the Fat Man are in for a treat, but newcomers should start with an earlier book, such as A Clubbable Woman. B+