The Galton Case — Ross MacDonald

The Galton Case looked clean-cut and routine to me in the beginning. I was wrong. The simple search for a missing heir had taken me across the country from pretty suburban homes to grim furnished rooms. I'd met people so corroded with hatred they weren't human anymore. I'd taken enough beatings to be a medical miracle of survival. I'd seen the bloody remains of three of the foulest murders on record. By the time I'd finished the case, I was lucky my name wasn't permanently engraved on a tombstone.