Death in the rear view mirror

the long version

Set in Kansas City the novel takes the reader on a journey into the seedy side of life in the mid-western city. The story introduces Stannard Jackson (St Jack to his friends) a discredited police detective turned insurance investigator. St Jack narrowly avoids being killed in a traffic accident when a derelict and careening Corvette nearly sideswipes his car. Minutes later the driver is killed when the Corvette slams into a bridge abutment on an interstate highway. When first responders arrive they find the driver of the car has been physically tortured and mutilated shortly before his death. A month later when a life insurance claim on the driver lands on his desk St Jack must determine if the driver, wealthy psychiatrist Dr. Loren Parlous, died as the result of accident, suicide or murder. The plot twists when St Jack discovers a link between the doctor's death and that of his son Russell fifteen years earlier. Soon enough he becomes embroiled in an investigation that threatens his sanity until he sees that death in the rear view mirror has a double meaning.