GRAVE DOUBT

Martin Blyleven was killed in a plane crash four years ago. So why has he been calling his widow and her second husband, threatening to sue for custody of his daughter if they don't fork over his life insurance payoff? When Jake Lomax (Blood Relative, 1992, etc.) investigates, he finds a long line of witnesses who swear that nobody could've planted a bomb, or an extra passenger, on the Denver -- Tucson flight that killed Blyleven and pilot Larry Foster. Under Jake's persistent probing, though, cracks start to appear in the evidence. Blyleven's old boss, televangelist Franklin Reed, is inching madly away from the news that Blyleven may have risen from the grave; a crucial witness remembers things he forgot to tell the police; the Denver thugs who cross town to beat up Jake have ties to the Tucson mob. It seems that all concerned agree that whatever really happened aboard Pastor Reed's private plane, Blyleven would be better off dead.... Jake's fifth case is unsurprising but fleet and businesslike -- a welcome recovery from Allegretto's last novel, the overcooked gothic Shadow House (1994).