The Fame Thief (Junior Bender) by Timothy Hallinan

Burglar and PI for the crooks Junior Bender is back. This time he's hired by senior powerbroker Irwin Dressler to find out who lead the cops to raid a gangster party that resulted in the end of a young actress' carreer in the fifties. And then there's that spunky hitwoman who wants him to find her daughter.
As in the first two Bender novels there's a lot of laughs in these pages. Dressler is just a very funny character and Bender gets in some great wisecracks as does his daughter. The last few chapters stars some good action scenes, a lot of writers get in too much detail or too little in scenes like that, but Timothy gets it just right.
What makes this book so interesting to a lot of non-PI fans is the portrait drawn of fifties Hollywood and the wonderful Dorothy Lamarr, a strong woman in a time women weren't expected to be strong yet. There's a large part devoted to her past that take you back to those old days of Hollwyood that will make you nostalgic.
Funny, tragic, and even action-packed. A great read.