Lawrence Sanders' McNally's Alibi

Claudia Lester is a blonde with a problem: she needs someone to give a blackmailer fifty thousand dollars. But when Archy wakes up with a bump on his head both Claudia and the money have disappeared. The other person who wants to find Claudia is Decimus Fortesque, an eccentric Palm Beach character known for his even more eccentric collecting habits. The fifty thousand dollars turned out to be his - and he thinks that Claudia may be in possession of both his money and a long-lost work by Truman Capote. When Fortesque offers to hire him to find Claudia, Archy can't resist - and falls over the first corpse in the case.