Dan Belton

Death Rides at Midnight Dan Belton

Dan Johnson, a burned-out San Francisco stockbroker, moves his family to a mid-sized Central Valley town in California. He buys land there and begins to build a giant waterslide theme park on the property. He immediately comes under fire from local agencies and citizens who wish him gone. An accelerating series of violent events, aimed at intimidation, ensue. When the theme park opens, the intimidation escalates to murder. Gruesome murder victims show up under mysterious circumstances in the pools below the waterslides. A series of clues leads Detective Dutch Von Telle to zero in on a motley trio of suspects. But the elusive killer remains free, the case still unsolved. The waterslide murders keep the public away, and Dan's business begins to fail. The story takes a sudden turn when the murderer is caught, the mystery apparently solved, the slides ready to resume business. But wait ... Just as the slides begin operation, Dan spots the real killer and realizes the solution was wrong. The murderer is still free, the trap is reset, and he's heading for certain death. The story hurtles to a surprising climax when the ingenious murder weapon and the keen-witted killer are unmasked.