The Dead of Winter

By Michael Allegretto

In frigid Denver, Lomax braves the mob to find a bookie's missing daughter.

Joe Bellano never hurt nobody. A gentle barber who takes bets on the side, he's muddling through life when his world comes crashing down around him. First he's arrested by an overzealous police force hoping for dirt on the local mob. Released after convincing the police that he's strictly small time, Bellano is trying to get back to normal when his teenage daughter vanishes. After years of keeping a low profile, Bellano finds himself with enemies on both sides of the law. Which one snatched his daughter?

Hemmed in by the feds and the mob, Bellano turns to Jacob Lomax, a private detective with a soft spot for bookies. The case seems routine until Bellano is killed by a car bomb meant for the missing girl. The barber may have been a crook, but his daughter is innocent, and Lomax will risk death to save her from her father's fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784083052

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).