Blood Stone

By Michael Allegretto

After a colleague dies, Lomax get roped into a deadly search for missing gems.

Four gunmen storm a jewelry store in downtown Denver, wounding a guard and killing a child. They leave with $2.1 million in gems and one hostage: the store manager, who turns out to be in on the job. Most of the gang winds up dead, but the manager lands in jail. Two decades later, he's up for release, the gems are still missing, and a whole lot of dangerous men will be watching to see if he knows where they're hidden.

Private investigator Jacob Lomax is one of them. Lloyd Fontaine, an acquaintance who worked the case back in the 1960s, tells him the manager knows where the gems are stashed -- a theory Lomax doesn't buy until Fontaine gets killed for his suspicions. Lomax didn't like the man, but he will do what it takes to avenge his colleague -- and he doesn't mind if he finds a few gems along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784083045

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).