Free Fall in Crimson — John D. MacDonald

GIRL IN COMA INHERITS FORTUNE -- that is how the headlines read when terminally ill tycoon Ellis Esterland was beaten to death at a stop on the Florida Turnpike two years ago -- murdered as his daughter lay unconscious, never to recover from a road accident. When she died a few weeks later, the bulk of his estate went to his estranged wife, Josie -- and to the benefit of Josie's weird friend Kesner, a film maker.

Esterland's son Ron got nothing -- and now he promises McGee half the inheritance he lost if McGee can discover the truth about the unsolved murder. "People who arrange a man's death, even if he's already dying, shouldn't inherit," Ron says.

The tangled trail leads McGee to the Florida boondocks, where he falls heir to half a motorcycle business, to Florida's west coast, where he is fascinated by Esterland's former live-in secretary Anne Renzetti, to Beverly Hills, where he begs the help of Lysa Dean, queen of the TV game shows, and finally to Rosedale Station, Iowa, where Josie and Kesner, funded by the inheritance, are making a disaster movie about a hot-air balloon meet.

McGee, faltering at first, unsure of himself and his inner resources, still grieving for his lost Gretel, relearns the old lesson -- that when he comes close to the edge of death he is completely alive.