Horse Mystery Fiction

Newly minted veterinarian Vivian Anderson knows and loves horses better than most. With an important horse show on the line and the search for a full-time vet job fast approaching, Vivian is fully occupied at her aunt’s Arabian horse ranch and her equine medical externship. Vivian’s world is abruptly shaken by a shocking murder that casts suspicion on the people she thought she knew best.

Haunted by the memory of a murdered father, Sam Jack struggles with a failing marriage and a failing career as a thoroughbred trainer. Enter Emily Brandt. Driven to near madness over losing her husband and son in a devastating barn fire, Emily involves Sam in an intricate plot to save her farm that begins the day her lone-surviving broodmare gives birth. Enter Black Deuce. And enter jockeys and grooms. Enter mob bookmakers and gamblers. Enter horse owners, racetrack officials, and more....

Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optician in suburban Boston, he rests assured that he and his wife, Viv, who works at the local stables, will live out quiet lives with their two children. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young racehorse—enters their lives, and everything changes.

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.

In her pursuit of wedding plans and a beautiful future, she finds herself at the mercy of the kelpies, a group of kelpie hunters called the Comhlan, and a stunningly handsome, too-good-to-be-true entrepreneur named Riley Slade. Will Vivienne escape the wrath of the water horses? Will she find a way to end the curse? Or will she fall prey to the hunger of the kelpies?

Pio Morgan is waiting outside a pub on a cold winter's night. There is a debt he must pay and no options left. What he does next drags a group of strangers into a web of confusion that over the course of a few days changes all their lives. There's the young Maori widow just trying to raise her children, the corporate executive hiding his mistake, the gang of criminals that will do whatever it takes to recover what they've lost and the outsider sent to town to try and figure out who did what. Time is running out for all of them as events take an increasingly sinister turn.

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.

Every year, Corrie Black ushers in the summer season by opening the campground's pool and hosting a private party for employees and friends. This year is no different—except for the corpse found floating on the surface the next day . . . It turns out that a bunch of graduating high school seniors snuck onto the grounds late that night for a little private party of their own. After arguing with both her current and past boyfriends, Krista Otero never made it home.

Nate knows how to solve crimes. He's dedicated his entire life to the force, sacrificing everything in his desperate attempt to absolve himself of the guilt he feels over his own mother's unsolved death. Sally loves Nate, but three years of waiting for him has proven one thing: his career will always come first. Not her. Frustrated by his constant absence, Sally does the unthinkable. She walks away.

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.

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.

The Hunted begins with a little girl witnessing a horrible crime. Due to the child's testimony, the murder is convicted. Eighteen years later the killer is released on parole, and his mission is to track down the now grown woman he feels betrayed him. A deranged dance of masked identities ensues, and it is up to newly single homicide detective Frank Russo to unravel the case.

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.

An unseen enemy seeks Tanner's death.

The picture was a warning: they'd found her. For eight years Grace Archer hoped this day wouldn't come, and knew in her heart that it would. She'd taken her daughter, Frankie, to a rural Alabama horse farm that might just as well have been at the end of the earth. But the man out to kill them would gladly follow them that far. And now, it seems, he had.

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.

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.

In 1938, as the Third Reich is just beginning its reign of terror, hundreds of Jewish orphans are hidden away in Austria, in the midst of their underground escape to Palestine. The only man who knows their location is killed, leaving the children with precious little time to survive. The dead man leaves a single set of instructions: Find US Department of War agent Neil Reuter - he will save the children.

Now federal prosecutor Jeff Trask is back on the case after a series of drug overdoses places investigators face to face with Los Zetas - the most dangerous of the Mexican drug cartels. What begins as an investigation of local heroin trafficking soon turns into something far more serious. The cartel will do anything to protect its cash flow - including a series of attacks against Trask's team that cement Los Zetas' status as one of the most ruthless criminal organizations of the century.

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.