Death on the Rocks

By Michael Allegretto

Hired to investigate a seemingly accidental death, a PI discovers a perverse secret.

Denver oilman Phillip Townsend is alone in his Jaguar when he drives off the cliff. The police call it an accident, but his widow, half mad with grief, insists it was murder. Her husband was quiet, cautious, boring -- so what was he doing on the outskirts of Denver, driving drunk down a lonely mountain road?

The Townsends' lawyer hires Jacob Lomax to look into the matter, letting him know that it would be best if the official version of the story were quietly confirmed. An ex-cop who became a detective in the wake of his wife's murder, Lomax is too dedicated to his work to simply parrot a police report. Digging through the dead man's office, he finds a tape that shows Townsend and an accomplice binding, gagging, and raping a teenage girl. The most boring millionaire in Denver, it seems, had a secret that was worth killing for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784083038

Michael Allegretto

Michael Allegretto (b. 1944) is an American author of thrillers and mystery fiction best known for creating Colorado private detective Jacob Lomax. Raised in Colorado, Allegretto spent his youth listening to the stories of his father, a Denver police officer whose experiences he later used as the basis for his first books. He made his debut in 1987 with Death on the Rocks, a story of murder, blackmail, and pornography that introduced Allegretto’s only series character: Jacob Lomax, an ex-cop who becomes a private detective after the brutal murder of his wife. Lomax would star in four more novels, including Blood Stone (1988), The Dead of Winter (1989), and Grave Doubt (1995). In the early 1990s, Allegretto began writing standalone novels, including the Christmas suspense story Night of Reunion (1990) and the fast-paced family thriller The Watchmen (1991).