Horse Mystery Fiction

Corrie and her Black Horse employees are celebrating their first "No Vacancy" day of the summer, when an anonymous note arrives and puts a damper on the festivities. It warns Corrie that if she doesn't close the campground on Saturday her life will be in danger. Though Sheriff Rick Sutton and former undercover narcotics detective J. D. Wilder begin an investigation, Corrie will do anything to protect her friends and livelihood. But when one of her guests is stabbed to death, his true identity makes her a suspect in his murder.

Just as Corrie is getting used to having former Houston, Texas, narcotics detective J. D. Wilder as a campground employee, he officially becomes a member of the Village of Bonney Police Department. Aside from a recent crime spree at the Black Horse, not much is going on in town, giving Wilder a chance to go over some cold cases. In the past fifteen years, three women have gone missing, exactly five years apart. What has amounted to nothing more than a local urban legend becomes Wilder's new obsession.

Arson and murder disturb the Appalachian peace of the Blue Falls Dude Ranch near cozy Boone, NC. Jemma Chase, trail-ride leader, becomes involved when her horse finds a body. Jemma Chase works as a trail leader on her parents' ranch, the Blue Falls, where she is also an accomplished photographer, carpenter and fixer-upper. Jemma has returned home in an effort to find some stability in her life, but things become tumultuous when someone begins poisoning dogs in Watauga County. Jemma is called in for an interview with Detective Tucker and bristles at his subtly accusing manner.

Saving a champion show jumper from a burning horse trailer gives young rider-trainer Robb Slaughter one job: finding out who tied that horse in that trailer and making them pay. For Robb, avenging that horse means atonement. It’s the horses who’ve saved him from the torrent of unanswered cries inside his head. Clearing the big jumps on horses he cares about has given him a hard-won mental peace. He has built a good life for himself as a professional show-jumping rider, on his way to Grand-Prix stardom . . .Until that fire.

3,000 years ago Iron Age people carved a white horse on the Downs near Uffington Castle, and now someone has dumped a body there. Laid out like a ceremonial killing, Detective Inspector Leo George isn't convinced that the murder is what it appears. He suspects the young female victim may have been a member of the Children of the White Horse, a secretive valley commune, but none of the cult members are talking. That is until he discovers his friend Jess Bridges is undercover in the commune, attempting to persuade a wayward young woman to leave the cult.

First published in 1910, The Horse of the Invisible tells the tale of Carnacki, a ghost detective investigating the haunting of a country house that threatens the wedding of the Hisgins Family's daughter and her fiance. The source of the apparition must be found before the soon-to-be-wed woman is driven mad, or even to her death. Carnacki does not suspect supernatural forces are at work in this case, but even a ghostbuster can be wrong.

Recently drummed out of a prestigious local university and its forensic research laboratory for blowing the whistle on pillars of the community, Dr. Cornell Westerly is a promising forensic scientist with a brand-new diploma and a California license plate. He's an apprentice crime scene investigator in need of a steady job to pay the rent. Westerly, an expert in DNA analysis, finds that opportunity with Detective Dash Brogan of the Los Angeles Police Department, a man steeped in the hard-boiled, old-school police procedurals of bygone times.

Emotionally vulnerable after a shooting incident, Ana has just returned to the job when she learns that a fellow agent has been murdered by a group of hard-core anarchists operating behind the facade of FAN (Free Animals Now). Dispatched to the FBI's infamous undercover school to learn the art of deceit, Ana takes on the identity of a down-on-her-luck animal lover determined to save the wild mustangs of the West.

After learning of a suspicious attempt to burn down a beloved old pub, The Crooked Horse, amateur detective Libby Sarjeant and her friend Fran reluctantly agree to investigate. But when a local antiques dealer mysteriously disappears after apparently taking out his boat, it appears there are dark and sinister forces at play. Can Libby and Fran uncover a connection between the fire and the missing man? And will unravelling a deadly case put them in terrible danger?

The secret of a carousel horse causes Casey to be kidnapped for the exchange of the mysterious horse. A thief, Casey, Peter, and the others are lost in another world trying to find the treasure that will save their lives. Will they find the treasure? Will Casey be found alive? Can they ever get back to Cornwall? What is this treasure that is worth a life? Jackie Lee tries to find Casey before it's too late!

At first, the case appears to be one of simple misadventure. Sonet van Rensburg, a base jumper, falls to her death while attempting to parachute off a newly built 65-story Sandton skyscraper. But Sonet’s jumping partner, Chris Theron, insists that this was no accident, and he hires private investigator Jade de Jong to uncover the truth. Glad of the distraction from her conflicted and seemingly doomed relationship with police superintendent David Patel, Jade immerses herself in the case. She discovers that Sonet worked for a charity that helped impoverished communities become self-supporting farming units.

Ex-journalist Dan Starkey is stuck in a grimy Belfast bedsit. His life is a disaster, and his only solace is the pub round the corner. He really, really needs something to get his teeth into. Fellow ex-journalist Mark Corkery provides that something. Corkery, an Internet horseracing gossip, wants him to investigate Geordie McClean, the man behind Irish American Racing. Simple enough for a man with Dan's experience, surely? But Trouble is Dan's middle name. And trouble is what he finds.

Life is passing Holly Grant by. She had dreams of being a journalist. Now in her late twenties, she's a bored office worker. But on her train home, Holly has eight thousand pounds drop into her lap, along with a curious note. Does she get off the north-bound train, as normal, and pop the money into the local police station on the way home to her scatter-brained mother, or does she stay on the train until it reaches Newcastle and take the money to someone who might know what the note means and allow her to pursue the mystery further?

An accidental drug overdose is ruled the cause of the death of the daughter of Chris Landrum’s neighbor. The young woman’s father, a retired police detective, had accused Chris of murder days after he’d arrived on Folly Beach a decade ago, and they’ve butted heads frequently since then. So, why get involved and question the cause of death? Could it be because the daughter was dating Joel Hurt, a man on the path to unseating Chris’s good friend, Brian Newman, as mayor of the small barrier-island?

A day at the races for Detective Inspector Tremayne, idyllic at the outset, soon changes. A horse is dead, and then the owner's daughter is found murdered, and Tremayne's there when the body is discovered. The question is, was Tremayne set up, in the wrong place at the right time? He's the cast-iron alibi for one of the suspects, and he knows that one murder leads to two, and more often than not, to three.

Daniel Youngblood is a world-weary oil and gas investment banker who’s ready to hit the beach, when he’s hired by a Saudi Prince for an OPEC deal where he can net himself $25 million as a swan song. At the same time, he meets and falls in love with Lydia, an exotic European fashion photographer, who he later discovers is really a CIA trained spy with a shocking history with the Saudi Prince. She convinces Daniel to enlist in what becomes a race for the lovers to stop a Muslim terrorist internet plot to bring down the Saudi royal family and cripple the world’s oil capacity, all before they wind up dead.

The February hunt season is in full swing in genteel Virginia when the neighborhood is rocked by murder: the female victim was stripped naked and propped onto a horse statue outside a tack shop.

Vivienne embarks upon the summer of her dreams as one of the few students selected for a training program back east at Liberty Farms. But as focused as she is on her riding, Vivvie also has a secret agenda: to investigate the death of Joel Parker, her friend who she believes was tragically murdered. Vivvie has hardly set foot in the state-of-the-art barns before things start to go amiss.

As 17-year-old Vivienne Taylor returns to Fairmont Riding Academy for the second semester, she just wants to get past the drama that dominated her first months at the school. Reunited with her beloved horse, Harmony, Vivvie vows to focus on riding, particularly with the announcement that a select group of students will be chosen to compete at a Three Day Event in Kentucky, with access to world-class coaches afterwards. Making the team is exactly what Vivvie needs to get to the next level.

Can a family that has been savagely ripped apart find healing and redemption? Are the mysteries hidden in the human heart destined to reveal themselves? The Rocking Horse, Gloria Zachgo's spellbinding suspense novel, charts the harrowing emotional journey of one family that is torn asunder, then magically drawn together again.