Dead on the Island — Bill Crider

Ex-P.I. Truman Smith of Galveston, Texas, is painting houses, trying to forget the disappearance of his sister Jan a year ago and his all-out, failed efforts to find her. Tru's high-school football teammates Dino and Ray live in Galveston too. Dino is rich--retired from the prostitution rackets his uncles had begun decades before. Ray, who's black, is Dino's live-in gofer. Dino wants Tru to find his vanished daughter Sharon--unacknowledged until now--by ex- prostitute Evelyn Matthews. Tru soon learns that Sharon had just discovered the truth about her mother's background and that she had a boyfriend--Terry Shelton. Shelton turns out to be the first in a string of corpses discovered or created by our hero before the object of his search comes to light.