Dead of Winter (A Jacob Lomax Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Professional and polished piece of P I writing
Review: This 1989 novel is number 3 in what turned out to be a 5 book series about Denver private eye Jacob Lomax who is aked to trace a missing girl one Stephanie Bellano who has gone missing after an arguement with Joseph Bellano her father and combination barber and bookie.The search takes on greater urgency with the murder of her father shortly after..
The search takes him into the world of organised crime in Denver and to a remote religious commune in the Colorado wilds .Along the ay he is beaten up,his friends threatend and he finds a new lady friend
R>Plotting is of Chippendalean dovetail tightness,with two lively shootouts near the end.Atmosphere is potently evoked with the bone freezing Denver December being well realised while Lomax is a reassuringly conventional old style PI-decent,tough and reliable.Indeeed characterisation is good all round and I recommend the book whole heartedly to any devotees of the private eye genre who want to see what the genre was like 20 or so years ago
I would love to know why the guy stopped writing in the early 90's He is missed....