MICHAEL ALLEGRETTO – The Dead of Winter. Jake Lomax #3. Scribners, hardcover, 1989. Avon, paperback, 1991.

   In this his third case, PI Jake Lomax is hired to find a barber’s missing daughter. The barber’s also a bookie, and the daughter, a sensitive type, has just found out. A good beginning, and the stakes quickly become even higher. The next day a bomb destroys the barber’s car.

   Allegretto has a smooth, even style of writing, but until the kidnapping plot is revealed, not much out of the ordinary actually happens. I’m ambivalent about the kidnapping plot, too. It’s an interesting twist, but overall the story line is a combination of bad coincidence mixed with poor judgment.

–Reprinted from Mystery*File #15, September 1989 (slightly revised).


      The Jake Lomax series —

Death on the Rocks (1987)
Blood Stone (1988)
Dead of Winter (1989)
Blood Relative (1992)
Grave Doubt (1995)