Free Fall in Crimson by John D MacDonald (1981)

Free Fall in Crimson, Collins 1981
UK First Edition

Travis McGee is approached by a young artist whose millionaire father was beaten to death in a lay-by a couple of years before. The old man had been dying of cancer, with only a couple of months left to him, and there’s a suspicion that he might have stopped in the lay-by to buy illicit drugs to help him through his last weeks. Travis is hired to find out the truth.

His search takes him into the world of motorcycle gangs, and to a film director who made a couple of cheap cult biker movies years before and is now engaged on a seemingly doomed project making a film about hot air balloons.

Actually John had a beard in the
photo on the back of this book
but this looks cool anyway.

Travis spends a lot of time weaving between bikers, druggies and a long-clawed Hollywood sex-kitten; and a new lady comes into his life in the shape of the lovely Anne Renzetti. We don’t see too much of Meyer after the opening chapters, but there’s a lot going on  here all the same, and the final confrontation with the killer is truly frightening. I liked it.