Hush Money — Peter Israel

Hired to kill a sensational story, a modern-day shamus discovers a murder

The rumors start flying almost as soon as Karen Beydon leaps out her window. The newspapers provide myriad theories as to what led this beautiful heiress to hurl herself out of a seventh-floor dorm room, suggesting everything from drug addiction and murder to depression over a love affair gone sour. The tawdry details of Karen's sad last days sell plenty of papers but do nothing to console her family. And when a California millionaire wants the press muzzled, he hires B. F. Cage.

Although his business card says public relations, Cage is a tough-talking private investigator in the classic mold. Before he can put Karen's story to bed, he needs to know what really happened that day in her dorm, and finding the answer will lead him into a side of the California underworld he never believed existed.