Kent Stephenson Thrillers

Hollywood starlet Aubrey Fairbanks and her entourage of activists descend on the picturesque upstate New York village of Jefferson to protest animal testing at the cosmetic company that is Jefferson’s lifeblood. Kent Stephenson is the town’s veterinarian and a lifelong resident. He is licking his wounds after a vicious divorce that took away his daughter and hiding from the world in his profession, surrounded by animals that love unconditionally. What seems to be a simple matter of negotiation soon escalates to arson, then murder.

It's the middle of the breeding season in Upstate New York, and the top stallions in Kent Stephenson's veterinary practice are being systematically eliminated by sudden death, rare disease, and mysterious disappearance. Kent, his Redbone hound, Lucinda, and his teenage daughter, Emily, put their lives on the line to find out why. Their investigation leads them from horseracing's seedy underbelly of fixes and doping to the staid aristocracy of Kentucky's famed bluegrass horse farms, struggling to keep their legacy of great stallions.

Doctor Stephenson's day-to-day routine of caring for animals is shattered by the apparently random murder of his lifelong friend. He and his hound, Lucinda, are drawn into the investigation. Kent soon suspects that small-town politics surrounding a new resort have led to murder, and that it won't end with just one victim. When a nameless toddler is found wandering alone by the river, all bets are off. As he unravels the mystery, Kent struggles with a new love interest and a sense of helplessness, as he fights the medical battle of his career to save his daughter's prize stallion.