Death on the Rocks

by Michael Allegretto

After Phillip Townsend dies in a car crash west of Denver, private eye Jacob Lomax, hired to investigate the accident, discovers that the dead man, a pillar of the community, is the star of a porno film and follows a trail that leads to murder

Genres: Mystery

232 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1987

About the author

Michael Allegretto (b. 1944) is an American author of thrillers and mystery fiction best known for creating Colorado private detective Jacob Lomax. 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.

Reviews

[Vani]

Content alert: Problematic descriptions of women, people of colour, plus-sized people, people with potential mental disabilities, and queer people; rape (including statutory rape), violence, and murder.

I hate-read this book since yesterday evening and there are only three reasons I kept going instead of consigning this to the DNF folder:

1) The victim is male - I'm trying to read more books that DON'T HAVE women and children as the victim. This is mostly because I keep seeing articles about how in mysteries, the victims are often women and/or children. After going through my library's collection of thousands of e-books and audiobooks, I realized these articles are correct. So I picked up this book.

2) The victim doesn't trigger my sympathy - The blurb states that he's caught on tape raping a teenager.

3) I wanted to know what happened to the victim, who killed him, and why. I also wanted to know what the PI was going to do about whatever he found out during the investigation. After finishing the book, let me say that there is no big mystery. It's a straightforward story with no twisty motive. Perhaps I'm judging this book too harshly and by modern standards and that isn't fair because the book was published in 1987. But then again, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None were published in 1926 and 1939, respectively, and their stories hold up well in terms of psychological analysis and twists and turns.

[Christine Mathieu]

So this was the first Jake Lomax volume, set in the Denver area of Colorado, Michael Allegretto's very first novel.
It's definitely readable, rather hard-boiled, reminds me of Ross MacDonald and Raymond Chandler.
However, for me this doesn't even come close to the suspenseful quality of "Shadow House" or "Night of the Reunion", two stand-alone crime novels in which Allegretto's writing style had improved and matured.

[Robert]

Another OK private detective novel. It was maybe a four star book till the end. I can't figure out how the author just turns their main character into an idiot. Who in their right mind would not call the cops before going to save that woman and her daughter? It's not even like he knew them that well. Come on. Just turned the whole novel into a ridiculous story. Scratching my head here...

[Rosemary Dreyer]

A typical "gum shoe" private eye story - damaged cop becomes a PI and takes on the bad guys, discovering things the cops can't or won't, becoming a vigilante of sorts. Much was too far fetched and I found the writing style very plodding and stiff. It was just okay.

[Lee]

This is a re-read, I liked this series (5 books) Takes place in the Denver metro area, I've lived in CO since 1969...semi-native :)

[Jeffrey Philips]

A great read. I'm thinking of visiting the Mountain Man Saloon (in my dreams).