Woman in the Wind - Gregory Stout

Nashville PI Jackson Gamble is hired by a muckraking newspaper columnist to track down a missing woman named Darlene Munson, who is in possession of a secret file that holds the proof needed to expose a far-reaching conspiracy to rig a statewide election. In the process of searching for the "woman in the wind," bodies pile up as Gamble runs afoul of the city's police department, and political leadership, its most widely-read newspaper, the all-powerful recording industry and an urbane, but no less ruthless, organized crime boss. And after nearly getting killed himself, Gamble must make one of the hardest choices he has ever faced, one that may quite literally allow a beautiful woman to get away with murder.