Dead Heat was published in 1963, one of the many (I believe there were 40) Shell Scott mysteries. Shell Scott is one of my favorite private eyes. He does dumb things, and comments as he's doing them that he knows it is dumb, but does it anyway. I find the books filled with humor, but still filled with action. He likes the ladies--and is not politically correct. He has strong opinions, and follows through. When he takes a case, he does his best to solve it, and his best usually succeeds--eventually.
In this story, Shell is hired by Gabriel Rothstein, financial wizard and multi-millionaire, to investigate whether Ryder Tangier is actually innocent of embezzlement or not. Tangier had already been found guilty a month before in a court of law, but as he was sent off to prison he swore that his old friend and former board member, Matthew Wyndham, had set him up.
Rothstein had invested a great deal of money in Tangier and Wyndham's company, Universal Electronics, and had suffered a huge monetary loss as the business was based on the scientific inventions of Tangier. Rothstein hires Scott to prove Tangier was innocent, and get him out of prison and back making his scientific discoveries and inventions. To encourage Scott, his fee was 1000 shares of common stock in Universal Electronics. The actual value would depend on whether Scott could prove Tangier's innocence.
I really enjoyed this book, as I have all the other Shell Scott mysteries.
This fulfills the 4. Fire requirement of the What's in a Name Challenge
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