A satisfying treat for horse and murder mystery lovers.
A sports journalist and amateur detective tries to track down the killer of a teenager in this mystery series opener.
Two and a half years ago, 16-year-old Stacy Jean Milhouse stole a horse and trailer from the stable where she worked and ran away from home. At least that was how it looked. The trailer was found abandoned but the girl and the horse were never seen again—until a wildlife rescue team found human bones while saving a goose in a local marsh. Stacy never made it a mile from the stable and her death was no accident. Journalist Jess Kennard covered horse racing at the highest level until one exposé unexpectedly led to bloodshed. Keeping a low profile at her family’s horse rehabilitation farm in Kentucky, Jess abandons all hope of peace and quiet when she learns about Stacy’s murder. Having practically raised Stacy after the death of her mother, Jess feels devastated (“She was like my little sister…Or maybe my daughter. A bit of both”). The protagonist puts her investigative skills and knowledge of the horse world to use as an unofficial consultant to the local police. Jess and Det. Joe Schuler, a college friend, have a limited amount of time to look for clues before the killer becomes aware of their search. When the pair begins to close in on newly elected U.S. Rep. Paul Renfrew and his family, the stakes grow higher—and deadlier. This an immersive, adventurous novel that dresses up mystery tropes by placing them in the cutthroat world of elite horse racing. DePrima’s intimate, detailed depiction of Kentucky horse country elevates the story even if the final reveal of the killer is a bit of a letdown. The motivations behind the murder seem too impulsive to justify the buildup. Still, Jess is the perfect protagonist for a mystery series: plucky, stubborn, and independent, with a hidden vulnerable side. Her long history with Joe makes the chemistry between them easy and exciting. But the setting is the standout here; the author deftly takes readers to a place that feels lived-in and dangerous.
A satisfying treat for horse and murder mystery lovers.Pub Date: May 15, 2023
ISBN: 979-8987508800
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.
A luxury liner bound for New York in 1924 becomes the scene of a twisty golden age pastiche.
When an unnamed third-class passenger discovers the body of an elderly man at the bottom of an exterior flight of stairs aboard the Endeavour, Capt. McCrory insists it must be an accident. But James Temple, a Scotland Yard detective who just happens to be aboard, says that no one would have ventured to the outdoor steps in the rain without a coat, so the death should be treated as suspicious. Unable to stop Temple from investigating, McCrory assigns ship’s officer Timothy Birch to accompany him, and Birch promptly becomes the world’s most unwilling Dr. Watson, constantly battling Temple over theories and procedures. Anxious that they have only four days to find a potential killer before the ship docks and lets its 2,000 passengers roam free in New York, he’s especially infuriated at the leisurely pace marked by Temple’s bromide, “Facts before witnesses.” There’s reason to sympathize with Temple, because the suspects in first and second class (the only classes that matter in this ultra-class-conscious world) are cardboard cutouts—the successful banker, his trophy wife, the aspiring artists, the gallery owner—who are much less interesting than the secrets they’re hiding. In his most anachronistic development, author Hindle shows Birch, unlike the imperturbable sidekicks he echoes, sunk in grief over his vanished daughter, Amelia, and his estranged wife, Kate, who left him after Amelia disappeared during one of his ocean voyages. He’d do anything to get his daughter back, he tells Temple, and his determination leads to the biggest surprise of all.
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9798217185740
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
