So many authors seem to pop out of nowhere, bring us several very fine works—even award-winning titles—only to disappear from the writing world. Michael Allegretto is one such example of a mysteriously vanishing writer. The only biographical information I could find is that he grew up listening to the real-life stories of crime and detection from his father, a Denver police detective. This one tidbit at least explains the setting for Allegretto's novels featuring Jacob Lomax, an ex-cop turned private investigator in Denver.
Allegretto's first novel in the Lomax series, Death on the Rocks, was published in 1987 to critical acclaim, eventually nominated for the 1988 Anthony and Macavity Awards and winning the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel that year. The author went on to pen four more Lomax installments, four standalones, and a few short stories (one included in Justice For Hire: The Fourth Private Eye Writers of America Anthology), with his last book published in 1995. One of his standalone thrillers, Terror in the Shadows, was made into a TV movie.
Death on the Rocks finds wealthy oilman Phillip Townsend dead in a car crash west of Denver after he allegedly drove his Jaguar off a cliff. The police chalk the death up to drunk driving, but Townsend's widow doesn't agree and hires Lomax to uncover the truth. Lomax soon learns more than the widow may have wanted him to: the dead man acted in pornographic movies and may have raped a minor, and he had ties to a call girl named Cassandra. As Lomax digs deeper, he finds that someone doesn't want him digging up more of Townsend's shameful past and is willing to kill again to stop him, targeting Lomax and the victim's wife and young daughter.
The novel's protagonist, Jake Lomax, left his police job and became a private eye after his wife's murder, a history that has left him understandably scarred. His tough-guy exterior is full of cynicism and one-liners, but he's also charming, quite intelligent, even a masterful chess player. Bill Pronzini had this to say about Death on the Rocks:
"(It) is brash and tough in the Hammett/Chandler tradition. But it is more than that, too, because Michael Allegretto is his own writer and Jake Lomax is his own detective. A twisty plot, crackling dialogue, and some knife-sharp observations are just three of the elements that make it something special. The Allegretto-Lomax team has the potential to become a front-runner in today's crowded and competitive private-eye sweepstakes."
Unfortunately, just seven years later, Allegretto and Lomax disappeared off the literary scene as quickly as they came. Thankfully, Mysterious Press has begun reissuing the Lomax series, including Death on the Rocks in 2013.
Nice review. I have not heard of this author but the premise sounds good. It is wonderful that Mysterious Press is reviving series like this.
Posted by: tracybham | February 13, 2015 at 02:25 PM
Yes, Tracy, Mysterious Press and other smaller presses are doing a great job reissuing some of these "forgotten" classics. That's good news because otherwise, you probably wouldn't have been able to find a copy of this book unless you checked your local library (which is where I first encountered it).
Posted by: BV Lawson | February 13, 2015 at 04:59 PM