Killed on the Rocks (First Edition)

At a snowed-in retreat, a corporate takeover turns deadly
A remote mansion, a blizzard, and lack of phone It's an opportunity a killer can't pass up. Matt Cobb, the in-house troubleshooter for a television conglomerate, is summoned to an executive meeting at the Adirondack home of billionaire G. B. Dost. Dost plans to acquire the TV network, and the shareholders are anxious about the rich man's intentions. One of the bigwigs might even prefer murder to a takeover. Sure enough, the morning before negotiations would start, Dost is discovered dead outside his lodge--surrounded by forty feet of smooth, unbroken snow--and Cobb is faced with the task of interrogating guests. And matters are only complicated by Dost's psychic wife, his off-kilter son, and a haunting message somehow relayed on a television found to be unplugged.

An engaging set-up collapses under the weight of a busy ending in the latest in DeAndrea's Matt Cobb series ( Killed in Paradise ). Cobb is asked to sit in as a TV station is acquired by corporate raider G. B. Dost at the billionaire's Adirondack estate. An anonymous note to all interested parties had warned of "insanity, treachery and murder" in Dost's behavior, and Cobb, ex-MP and now director of "special projects" for "the Network," has been brought along just in case. The warnings prove true--the morning after a blizzard that knocks out the phone lines, Dost is found dead, impaled on pointy rocks lining his driveway. Noting the absence of footprints around the body, Cobb interrogates the six houseguests and several family members, beginning with Barry, Dost's unstable son. An eerie message from Dost on a unplugged TV set results in a fatal shooting. After a temporary impasse, the investigation regains steam when Cobb figures out the tricks behind the TV transmission and the footprints. Explaining them takes too much time, draining suspense.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.