The Dead of Winter

Allegretto presented Denver-based private eye Jacob Lomax in his Shamus Award-winning first novel, Death on the Rocks , and gained more applause with Blood Stone. In the third gritty, mordantly witty adventure related by Lomax, he searches for a lost teenager, Stephanie Bellano. Hired by the girl's father Joe, a barber with a sideline in bookmaking, Lomax keeps working on the case even after Joe is killed by a bomb planted in Stephanie's car. Believing the intended victim was the daughter, not the father, Lomax nevertheless checks on patrons of the barbershop and rival bookies, thus making himself a target of the local mafia. Other minor, equally murderous crooks gang up on the investigator but merely deepen his outrage and zeal to save Stephanie and himself. It is a monumental task that Lomax accomplishes finally, maintaining suspense in a many-layered mystery that ought to win Allegretto another prize. (Aug.)