You're Lonely When You're Dead — James Hadley Chase

When Vic Malloy, head of Universal Services - an organization undertaking any job that a client wants done - is hired to watch a millionaire's wife suspected of kleptomania, it is just another routine assignment - until an operator working on the case is suddenly and brutally murdered. Then the millionaire's wife vanishes; and the husband denies he has ever hired Malloy, and threatens to sue him if he goes to the police. Faces with this extraordinary situation, Malloy is determined to avenge the death of his operator and , playing a lone hand, sets out to find the killer. From that moment, he and his two aides, Paula Bensinger and Jack Kerman are involved in a series of ruthless murders and macabre situations. Strange people flit across the scene; any of them could be the killer. There is the ex-prize fighter, Caesar Mills; the millionaire's crippled daughter, Natalie; the nightclub owner, Bannister; the playboy, George Barclay; the photographer and blackmailer, Louis, the cowboy sharpshooter, Thayler; and the red-haired, green-eyed Gail Bolus, a girl with a past.