Dangerous Outsider - Softcover

Perseus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786719591 ISBN 13: 9780786719594

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2007

Synopsis

A young Irish trainer moves to England to take on a successful rival. Strange accidents occur. In an international plot that ranges from the Cotswolds to Dublin, London to Switzerland, New Zealand to Singapore, the violence escalates with an attempt on the trainer's life.

About this title

About the Author

Following a successful career in advertising,at the age of 40, Graeme Roe decided to take up horse racing under the guidance of top trainer David Nicholson. His biggest success was winning the Ayr Yeomanry Cup on Dom Perignon, after which he took out a Jockey Club permit and full licence. Graeme now runs a corporate communications company.

Reviews

Roe's first entry in a planned series of English horse-racing mysteries isn't exactly a non-starter, but it doesn't belong in the same field as the novels of former champion jockey Dick Francis. The competent if complicated plot involves unidentified, powerful foes employing a variety of violent and underhanded tricks to undermine the success of County View, a racing complex in the Cotswolds (with international ancillary operations) run by ex-jockey turned trainer Jay Jessop and wife, Eva. The Jessops have plenty of their own formidable, wealthy backing, and when it becomes apparent they're being targeted, they take countermeasures almost immediately. The most obvious threat is the entrance of a relatively unknown Irish trainer, Quentin O'Connor, who begins to lure away owners' horses from County View by paying extravagant prices. Nothing illegal in that, but worrisome nonetheless. Worse follows, but Roe (ATouch of Vengeance) fails to ignite his understated narrative, despite his impressive, knowledgeable descriptions of race courses and procedures. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Someone has it in for horse trainer Jay Jessup and his highly successful County View training operation, which campaigns jumpers throughout England. First an undisclosed buyer purchases several of the yard's best horses for prices their owners can't refuse and gives them to a rival trainer. Then the stable's top rider is lured away to the same rival's operation, followed in short order by an attempt to frame Jessup for doping horses and a series of fires, poisoned horses, and shootings. But who is behind all these shenanigans, and what do they hope to gain? Roe's tightly plotted whodunit keeps us intensely curious, if profoundly in the dark, to the very last chapter. There is plenty of exciting racing, followed by an astonishing number of "celebratory drinks" to keep us amused while the mystery plays out; and when the answers to the central questions of who and why are finally revealed, they prove well worth the wait. Roe's work is neither as engrossing as the genre's late master Dick Francis, nor as gritty as contemporary star Mark Daniel, but it is great fun nonetheless. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786719591
• ISBN 13: 9780786719594
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288