The Dallas Deception — Richard Abshire

He drinks, smokes, lives out of his office and is always seriously short of cash. Square in the tradition of down-and-out PIs, Abshire's Dallas detective Jack Kyle (introduced in Dallas Drop ) is also a sensitive, modern guy, not yet 40, as up-to-date as the advanced technology employed by the deranged genius at the heart of this hard-to-credit but deftly handled plot. As a favor to an old Dallas PD pal, Kyle investigates the keyhole porn scam by which teenage Liz, filmed while having sex, is being blackmailed. Kyle finds the tapes and roughs up the filmmaker, but shortly thereafter discovers Liz back at the lout's apartment, naked and stoned, the young man's bloody corpse still warm in the bathroom. Getting the girl out of there just before the cops arrive, he takes her to her grandfather, called The Doctor, and begins to unravel the tangled history of warped, mind-controlling experiments that have led to murder and other evils.