Death of an Honest Man by M. C. Beaton

Hamish meets the new resident in his district and immediately is put off by his comments.  He indicates he thinks Hamish dyes his hair red and tells his deputy he must be gay.  They don't visit long.

Grand Central Publishing and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published February 20th.

Paul is really a bully and blackmailer.  Hamish wished he'd moved someplace else.  But while Paul makes trouble for him, his boss is even more dangerous.  The man he reports to wants to kill him because he keeps solving all the cases he gets.  The boss wants to put his name on them and get the credit.

If that's not enough conflict for you, Hamish goes to visit his wildcat at the sanctuary and sees it get shot.  He races home with it and gets the vet to work on it.  No one knows if it will live or not.  And when it does, everybody else tells him it's not his cat.  He doesn't listen to them.

Paul ends up dead.  No one saw anything and no one will say what they did see or hear.  Hamish's deputy is quitting the force.  He ends up with two others during the course of the story.  There's another death and Hamish is getting fed up with all the various stresses.

He eventually gets down to who the killer was and almost dies during the confrontation.  It's surprising how he gets saved.

Hamish's life is always messed up and it doesn't look anything is going to make it much better.  But these stories are entertaining and the author takes you unusual places.  I'll be reading the next book, too.