Harriet Martens #1: The Hard Detective by H.R.F. Keating (2000)

Hardcover with DJ in Very Good (VG) condition.  H.R.F. Keating wrote the book on crime fiction (several, actually, including his 1991 text Writing Crime Fiction) and has, over time, built a thoroughbred stable of police detectives. With The Hard Detective's Harriet Martens, the stable grows by one memorable, and memorably unpleasant, entrant. Detective Chief Inspector Martens doesn't care for criminals, whether truants or axe-wielding thugs, nor does she suffer her less-than-perfect underlings gladly. She does, however, care about the quality of life in Greater Birchester, and she happily hobbles, via her Gestapoesque yet successful "Stop the Rot" campaign, all who go astray. And all's well in Greater B. until Patrol Constable "Titty" Titmuss comes down with a case of knife-in-the-back. A blue-clad hint that the underworld has had enough of "Stop the Rot"? Plausible, until another constable, momentarily blinded, succumbs to the wheels of a city bus, and the loathsome Detectiv