Silent Salesman — Michael Z. Lewin

It's bad times in the gumshoe business for Albert Samson, that seedy, cynical, and altogether satisfying Indianapolis private eye. Even a gigantic detective sale ad in the local newspaper fails to lure in so much as one case so when a frantic woman asks him to find out why for seven months she had not been permitted access to the hospital room where her brother has been confined, Samson is ready to give his all. The mystery that envelops Samson is bewildering stew-drug trafficking, corporate hanky-panky, suspicious explosions, and murder. And he gets unexpected help from his long-lost teenage daughter, Sam, fresh from a Swiss boarding school, who proves to be as shrewd and stubborn as her father.