Liquid Smoke

Liquid Smoke is a Fiction adult, suspense, thriller, Detective written by Jeff Shelby.
Private Eye  Noah Braddock has just learned that is Father, Russell Simington is on death row awaiting execution in  a few days. A lawyer has contacted him to see if he will go talk to this man he has never met.
When he gets to the airport to make his flight the lawyer isn't there and when the plane takes off she  did not show. He goes and talks to his dad and gets name of a man. When he returns home he finds his door unlocked and the lawyer dead in his floor.
Noah's girlfriend is a homicide detective, Liz Santangelo.
The police don't have much to go but do know Noah is innocent. He starts checking on the name his dad had given him and sees he is connected with the gambling casinos the same kinds of places his dad had been involved in. Noah and a friend snoop around the casino and speak with the owner who denies knowing Simington or Keene.
Late one night Noah gets a threatening phone call and he thinks it was a threat towards his alcoholic mom but instead Liz had been murdered. This sets him on a collision course and he discovers Keene is going after a family that he had been blackmailing and Noah intends to stop him. He goes and waits for him to show and shoots him. He and his friend take him to the desert and bury him.
Noah's dad has less than 12 hrs to live so he goes back to see him and discovers that his dad had used him to kill Keene.By the time he gets back home they have found the body and Noah is on the run.