Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy
Los Angeles - Fritz Brown, ex-alcoholic private eye with a stained past, makes do with car repossessions and classical music. Then he is offered a case by Freddy 'Fat Dog' Baker, an eccentric golf caddy whose sister has made off with a much older man.
This is the beginning of the nightmare: the underworld of golf caddies, arson and incest played against the backdrop of an LA surreal by night and bad by day; of long-hidden secrets that will drive Brown back to the bottle and to the gun: all conspire to make this one of the most hypnotic crime novels ever written.