Death And Taxes — David Dodge

A CPA in 1940s San Francisco searches for his partner's killer in this witty and “hard-hitting” mystery by the author of the classic To Catch a Thief (Time).
 
The first in the series of noir mysteries starring hard-drinking accountant Whit Whitney, Death and Taxes follows the calculating amateur detective as he looks into the murder of George MacLeod -- a top tax consultant who was a close colleague of Whitney's, at least until his body was stuffed into a bank vault.
 
A fast-paced, sharp-witted tale involving everything from pretty blondes to bootleggers to tangles with the Treasury Department, Death and Taxes “winds up at a lightning pace . . . Fast and easy to read” (New York Herald Tribune).
 
“Rapid-fire action in the manner of Dashiell Hammett.” -- The Detroit News