Body on the Beach by Simon Brett

Carole Seddon, a fiftyish divorcee late of the Home Office, has settled in a small town of Fethering, content to live a sensible, orderly retirement. But two events conspire to disrupt Carole's rigid routine: the arrival of an alarmingly casual new neighbor who insists on being called, merely, "Jude"; and the discovery of a dead middle-aged male on the Fethering beach.

When Carole informs the police about the body, they dismiss her as a menopausal hysteric; after all, their subsequent search of the area yielded no trace of evidence. But when a haggard, drug-deranged woman appears at Carole's door with a gun, demanding to know if Carole located a knife on the body, Carole realizes that the corpse had been moved just before the police search. The situation gets more dyre when a local teenage boy is found washed up on the beach, it's Jude who convinces Carole that the two deaths are somehow connected and deserving of the two neighbors' full attention.

We learn a lot about Carole's mundaine government working life but while hints of a more exotic life for Jude we really learn very little about her.  It's interesting as her character seems open but she won't even give out her last name.

I really enjoy Simon Brett and know that I read this many years ago but enjoyed it very much.  Yet more books to read now.