The murder of an alderman on the canal towpath of the north country town of Fellaby brings about a crisis in the lives of the men who run the place and those who tell them how to run it.

The papers are filled with eulogies of the dead man, of his rags-to-riches rise to power, but Detective-Superintendent Simon Kenworthy of the Yard soon discovers that Alderman Edward Barson was definitely one of Fellaby's least favourite sons.

While the local police explore the more orthodox avenues of investigation, Kenworthy turns to an unlikely source for help - fifteen-year-old Putty, a tough young girl whose local knowledge and influence he is to use to his own decidedly unorthodox ends.

A precursor to The Casual Vacancy, Death of an Alderman was John Buxton Hilton's first novel and introduces that most popular of detectives, Simon Kenworthy.