Blowback, by Bill Pronzini

I love the concept of this series, which is 25 years old now: the main character, a P.I., is never named. Sometimes, it's rather jarring, but by and large Pronzini makes it unobtrusive and you don't really notice the missing name.

This is one of the earlier stories, which finds Nameless facing his own mortality while helping out an old Army buddy. Said buddy has asked him to come up to his lakeside cabins and try to sort out an explosive situation that has developed around the wife of one of his lodgers. The husband is insanely jealous of any attention paid to her, and there is a lot of attention since she is gorgeous and seemingly unaware of her effect on men.

In the midst of this, the two friends are witness to a van going off a cliff with its owner dead in the front seat. And then one of the other lodgers turns up missing.

If you don't like hard-boiled detectives, you'll strongly dislike this book, but it's an interesting snapshot of the last 70s culture if nothing else. I'll keep reading the series.