Riders Down - Hardcover

McEvoy, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590582586 ISBN 13: 9781590582589

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2006

Synopsis

No one really notices that a fix may be in until Matt O'Connor, a Chicago-based columnist for a national racing newspaper, gets a call from Moe Kellman, a horse-owning acquaintance. Kellman’s question for Matt: Was the death of ninety-two-year-old Bernard Glockner, Chicago's oldest active bookmaker, suicide or murder? Glockner was Kellman's late uncle and Kellman, a man not unfamiliar with the Chicago mob, wants Matt to check it out.
Matt quickly comes to believe that the fate of the bookie is tied to a series of races whose outcomes have been manipulated. His quest is aided by horse trainer Maggie Collins and Dave Zimmer, a professional gambler known as The Fount for his reputation as an encyclopedic source of information. Eventually, going as far afield as Las Vegas and Madison, Wisconsin, they fix their sights on a brilliant sociopath. But why would this psycho have plotted a race-fixing scheme?
Spiced with the kind of lively language that marked Blind Switch, the author's debut novel (2004), Riders Down offers striking insights into the world of horse racing and the possibilities of its corruption.

About this title

About the Author

John McEvoy, former Midwest editor and senior correspondent for Daily Racing Form, is the author of five previously published non-fiction books on thoroughbred horse racing, including the award-winning Great Horse Racing Mysteries. He has also published a book of poetry. McEvoy and his wife Judy live in Evanston, IL.

Review

The death of 98-year-old Chicago bookie Bernie Glockner is ruled a suicide at the start of McEvoy's fine second horse-racing mystery (after 2004's Blind Switch), but Glockner's nephew, mob-connected Moe Kellman, knows better and asks racing columnist Matt O'Connor to sniff around a bit. Glockner's demise proves merely the first of many as a brilliant, eccentric and ruthless villain embarks on a twisted path to claiming a fortune. Horse racing has always attracted a wide range of colorful characters, and McEvoy portrays them all with an obvious affection and a sharp eye, from jockeys, trainers and touts to fans, newsmen and suckers. O'Connor has few illusions about the sport, but even he is unprepared for the kind of peril unleashed by his probing a race-fixing scam. Unlike Jack Doyle, the reluctant sleuth in Blind Switch, O'Connor is a natural with all the makings of a series hero. He combines charm, racing expertise and a willingness to go the distance that will carry the reader all the way to the finish line. -- Publishers Weekly (1/16/06)

Booklist *STARRED REVIEW*
McEvoy has created a winning protagonist in Chicago turf writer Matt O'Connor, who has an abundance of friends in mostly low places and his finger firmly on the pulse of the national horse racing scene. He has created an even better villain in Claude "the professor" Bledsoe, whose cushy life as a perpetual student will come to an abrupt end unless he can produce $1 million before his trust fund expires in a few months' time. No $1 million, and it's straight to the job market at the age of 50, sans resume, but if he can come up with that much money, he'll inherit Grandma Bledsoe's fortune and be set for life."Bledsoe, a brilliant if monstrously egomaniacal psychopath, hatches an ingenuious plot to amass the needed dough by betting on fixed races. The scent of something rotten at the track attracts O'Connor, however, and soon the writer and his girlfriend, trainer Maggie Collins, are scheduled to share the fate of nine other racetrackers who have been sacrificed for the greater good of Bledsoe's financial security. "McEvoy, who was himself a correspondent for 'Daily Racing Form' for many years, is dead-on in his descriptions and accounts of Thoroughbred racing. He also gives us characters we can care about and suspense enough to make the blood race like a stakes-winning sprinter. That's all we ask of a racetrack thriller, and McEvoy delivers. -- Booklist, 2/15/06

Praise for Blind Switch
"This accomplished first novel set in the world of horse racing is bound to be compared to the novels of Dick Francis."

--Publishers Weekly Starred Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1590582586
• ISBN 13: 9781590582589
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254