I have a relative who has enjoyed Dick Francis, the horse racing mystery writer, in the past. I was curious if there were other authors writing horse racing mysteries, thinking that a really good horse racing mystery might make a good gift. I went to my library's website, clicked on the Novelist database, and typed "horse racing mysteries" in the search box. I was surprised by the long list of titles that came up - 203. And the very first on the list was Dead Certainty by Glenis Wilson, so I put a hold on it and picked it up at my library's drive-through.(Another book on the list that looked interesting, and was owned by my library, was High Stakes: A Jack Doyle Mystery,
In a larger sense, I was looking for a horse racing mystery series writer, so I scrolled down the list to a title by Dick Francis called Wild Horses. Underneath the title, there was a link for "Title Read-alikes," that is, books very similar to Wild Horses. I clicked on another link, right beside the first one, "Author Read-alikes," because I wanted to find other authors writing horse race mysteries.
It was an interesting list: the very first author name on the list was Sam Llewellyn, who writes mysteries related to the sea, chosen because he also provides details about an intriguing milieu. The second author on the list was cited for mysteries set in the world of auto racing. The third author, Kit Ehrman, also writes about the world of horse racing. And, Glenis Wilson was on the list.
I notice that there are many reviews of Glenis Wilson's books on GoodReads, and that Dead Reckoning, the third in the Harry Radcliffe series, got a 4.44 rating, quite high for GoodReads where readers tend to be critical.
Now that I've finished Dead Certainty, I can't quite make up my mind about it. I wanted something light and suspenseful, and I think it was both. When I got to about page 75, it started to be much more suspenseful and I finished it in two days.
Harry Radcliffe is a jockey who takes a great spill, injuring his knee. Afterwards, he's not sure if he'll be able to race again, but certainly faces a long period of physical therapy rehabilitation. His boss suggests Harry, while he's recuperating, take on a special commission: ghost-writing the autobiography of a famously successful trainer who's now retiring. Harry writes a column for the local racing newspaper, but he think it's a stretch to take on penning a biography. Still, needs must - he needs the dosh.
Shortly after he begins work, a number of frightening things start happening: he's involved in a car crash with a horsebox, and an unknown person enters his kitchen in the middle of the night, splasing around petrol, and would have started a fire with Leo, Harry's formidable ginger tom.
Harry's scared and angry. He doesn't know who's out to get him. Does it have something to do with his accident? The book commission he's taken on?
