Horse Mystery Fiction

Slough House is a dumping ground for British intelligence agents who've screwed up cases in any number of ways - by leaving a secret file on a train or blowing a surveillance. River Cartwright, one such "slow horse", is bitter about his failure and about his tedious assignment transcribing cell phone conversations. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself.

Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the Program, he adopted a new name and a new mission—The Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble.

Few will hire competitive rider, Viola Parker, since the famous jumper, Wastrel, crashed to his death with her aboard. Not only that, her attitude just landed her out of work...again. She can barely afford her whipped-cream-in-a-can addiction. Now, before she's 30, she must keep a job for one year and receive a glowing letter of recommendation to get a surprise trust fund set up by her absentee parents. A trust fund that could represent freedom and independence - or might be worth nothing.

The Denver Post hails Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mystery series as a must-read. Joining the four previous novels - all of which have been Book Sense picks - The Dark Horse puts a unique Wyoming twist on the classic British village mystery. When Longmire meets a woman jailed for her husband's death, he travels outside his usual haunts to discover the truth behind this unusual murder case.

When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches the victim so roughly that his already ragged cassock is torn in the process. What was the killer looking for? And what had a dying woman confided to the priest on her deathbed only hours earlier? Mark Easterbrook and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, are determined to find out. Maybe the three women who run The Pale Horse public house - and who are rumored to practice the "Dark Arts" - can provide some answers....

Three complete stories in one collection! This volume includes The Mystery Horse, The Mystery at the Dog Show, and The Castle Mystery.

Late on a spring night in 1920, five boys cross the Yorkshire dales to the ruins of Fountains Abbey, intent on raising the Devil. Instead, they stumble over the Devil himself, sitting there watching them. Terrified, they run for their lives, leaving behind a book on alchemy stolen from their schoolmaster. The next morning, a body is discovered in the cloisters of the abbey--a man swathed in a hooded cloak and wearing a gas mask.

Nikki Roberts feels very grown up when her parents leave her alone in their mountain lodge for a few days. The 13-year-old has promised them she will not take any long horseback rides or canoe trips, so she saddles Goblin and heads for a nearby sheep meadow for the afternoon. It’s not long before Nikki’s trail leads her into perilous territory. She surprises deadly poachers at work who are shooting bighorn rams for trophies. Her CB radio picks up a distress call from two children stranded in a forest fire that has broken out down river.

The Boxcar Children are spending their vacation on a farm. They learn to do everything from milking cows and making homemade jam to raising a barn. Then one day they spot a beautiful horse locked up in a stable. Who is the mystery horse? And why is it hidden?

Flo lives an eccentric life - she travels with a popular circus in which the main acts star orphaned children with secret shape-shifting abilities. Once Flo turns 16, she must perform, but she's not ready. While practicing jumping a flaming hurdle in a clearing beside the circus, she spots a dark figure in the trees and fears he saw her shift. The news sends the circus into a panic.

Tom Angleberger scored two critical and popular hits with his Star Wars–inspired The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and Darth Paper Strikes Back. In the hilarious Fake Mustache, young Lenny Flem Jr.’s friend Casper disguises himself with a shockingly convincing handlebar mustache and begins robbing banks, quickly amassing a fortune. Setting his sights on the presidency, Casper is working on plans for world domination—and only Lenny stands in his way.

Valentine, a blind, confused old man on his deathbed, seeking his peace with God, makes his last confession to a visiting friend, Thomas Lyon, mistaking him for a priest. This puts Thomas in a moral dilemma. Wild horses wouldn't drag from a priest the secrets of the confessional. Engaged in directing a film set in the world of racing, Thomas finds that the solution to this quandary could mean the difference between life and death.

This wasn't the secret she expected from her Secret Santa! Security expert for a British bank by day, horse trainer at night, Izzy Paterson is a multi-tasking, dressage-riding computer whiz with an addiction to strong coffee and a penchant for CSI on Netflix. So when the Secret Santa at her office Christmas party hands her a perplexing riddle, she just can't ignore the mystery. Penned by a modern-day Robin Hood, the anonymous rhyme hints at financial misconduct that could put the future of everyone at her work in danger.

When Eleanor Wooley's best friend Rette suddenly disappears, Eleanor abandons her job as a crime reporter for the Gold Strike Tribune in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and sets off in desperate pursuit. What begins as a search and rescue operation quickly becomes an obsession and a personal quest for truth. Spurred by gut instinct, Eleanor scours Northeastern Nevada during the worst heat wave in recorded history. Obscure signs appear-an intruder's dire warning, a casino's mysterious graffiti, a random sighting of a killer on the run.

The Thebes State Penal Farm in Mississippi is up a dark river, surrounded by swamps and impenetrable piney woods. It’s the Old South at its most brutal - a place of violence, racial terror, and even more horrific rumors. Of the few who make the journey, black or white, even fewer return.

Kelsey Byden always believed that her mother was dead. But now, after all this time, she has discovered the truth: Naomi Chadwick is still alive - after spending years in prison for the murder of her lover. Now, at Naomi’s Virginia horse farm, Kelsey is trying to sort out a lifetime of deception - and her feelings about her mother. The bonds of love can be fragile...as Kelsey learned from her recently ended marriage.

A British jockey, riding in Norway, has disappeared, and with him has gone a day's takings from the turnstiles of Oslo racecourse. The Norwegian police have found no trace of him, nor have the British, and the case is being filed as just one more unsolved theft. David Cleveland, investigator for the Jockey Club, is a last resort. He goes without much expectation, and finds himself in waters as dark and deep as the fjords.

Violent burglars have been terrorising residents across the English countryside. But when a mutilated body is discovered in a Cotswolds house, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary group of opportunist thieves. As Detective Jack Warr investigates, he discovers locals with dark secrets, unearths hidden crimes - and hits countless dead ends. With few leads and the violent attacks escalating, he will have to act as audaciously as the criminals if he hopes to stop them.

Tim Ekaterin's merchant bank, like all banks, only invests in sure things. Now he's about to involve it in ₤5 million of prime horseflesh, a stallion called Sandcastle. Top breeders reckon it's the safest bet in racing. But racing doesn't just attract the money men of the city. It's riddled with all kinds of dubious dealmakers. People who don't think twice about breaking bones. People to whom no bet is safe until it's paid in blood, Ekaterin's blood.

Philip Nore is nearing the end as a jockey. George Millace is finished in photography. The differnce is, Millace is dead, and Nore has discovered his secret: a set of files which would blow the top off the racing world. Hated by a dying grandmother he has never known and abused by a trainer he knows only too well, Nore is no stranger to shabby morals. And when he begins to decipher the dead man's photographs, he uncovers corruption on a scale he had never imagined.