John Maddox Roberts: Desperate Highways (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
Gabe Treloar has just been handed his most important assignment ever - finding his boss's missing daughter.
Frantic Kit Carson fears his attractive, straight-arrow daughter Sybil may have been led astray by manipulative Nick Switzer, a scam artist who spent most of his early days in juvenile hall. When Gabe finds Sybil's diary, he realizes from her cryptic musings that there may be more to this young woman than the dutiful daughter and honor student she appears. Gabe, a former LAPD detective turned private investigator, takes to the road to begin his search.

Gabe's investigation leads him to Memphis, where he discovers that the couple is somehow involved in the cultlike torture and subsequent murder of an old acquaintance of Switzer's. Energized by the excitement he has missed since he left the police, but fearful for Sybil, Gabe goes undercover, anxious to return a long-owed favor to Kit. He discovers somebody else is also after the pair, and suddenly the clock is ticking as Gabe races to find the young people before any harm comes to them.

John Maddox Roberts: Desperate Highways. A Gabe Treloar Mystery. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312171765 (October, 1997), 298 p., $23.95.