Grave Doubt
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Lomax chases an accountant who has come back from the dead to blackmail his widow
The plane went down outside Tucson, and all aboard were burned beyond recognition. The sole passenger was Martin Blyleven, an accountant employed by a Colorado televangelist with shady business partners, but the death was ruled an accident, and $400,000 in insurance money went to the widow. Four years later, she begins getting phone calls from a man claiming to be Martin. He has risen from the dead, but unlike the saints in his old boss's sermons, he has come back demanding cash.
Private investigator Jacob Lomax is hired to find out who is impersonating Blyleven, and how he learned the private details that make his act so convincing. But when the TV preacher's criminal backers get wind of the investigation, they come down hard on Lomax. If he can't wrap this up quickly, he may be in need of a resurrection of his own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Deft plotting and the engagingly ironic narration of Denver shamus Jake Lomax are nearly wasted in this less than gripping work. A few years back, accountant Martin Blyleven died in a plane wreck, leaving a wife, a child and an insurance policy. He also left his employer, charismatic TV preacher Franklin Reed, with a job to fill. Reed's church, funded mainly with cash, is falling under the watchful eye of a local mafia type, and Blyleven's wife now claims that her husband is alive and demanding money--the precise amount of the insurance policy. The mob-church connection grows stronger, and the PI is threatened by three goons. Except for Lomax, the cast is less than engaging. Immoral, philandering preachers are a dime a dozen, and the Shamus Award-winning Allegretto (Death on the Rocks) breaks no new ground here. But Lomax is as charming as ever, occasionally droll, seldom brilliant but never stupid. He fears faxes and fast new cars and will doubtless never get real lucky in love, but he's a pleasure to hang out with, even when he's just going through the motions.
