The rare Finnish entry in the hardboiled private eye genre, Jorma Napola's
Ruuvikierre (1962), has the hero getting in a rehab center for lunatic
alcoholics to find some clues. I believe Reijo Mäki, the most popular
private eye writer working in Finland now, snatched this part into one of
his Jussi Vares novels.
I wrote about Napola (in English) here:
http://pulpetti.blogspot.com/2008/04/jorma-napolas-one-off-private-eye-novel_13.html
There's also an old pulp story by Peter Paige AKA Morton Wolson, in which
the private eye Cash Wale puts his friend into an asylum to spy on a
suspect. Steve Lewis's Mystery*File blog has lots of info on Paige/Wolson.
Juri
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