Synopsis
Up-and-coming jockey Nick Storr is set for the ride of his life. He's to pilot Ibn Saud, the pride of his father's stable, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the steeplechase event of the year. Arriving at the racecourse on the morning of the race, Nick is stunned to learn that his father has fired him. When the jockey who replaces him loses the race - a race Nick is certain Ibn Saud could easily have won - Nick is forced to confront the possibility that his father has intentionally thrown the contest. So begins Nick's journey into the past, as he attempts to discover the cause of his father's perfidy and to resurrect his own riding career. What he finds is a world of organized crime, fixed races, crooked jockeys, and illegal gambling lying just beneath the surface of the prosperous, seemingly upright world in which he was raised. Pursuing his father's secret involvement in this netherworld, Nick learns just how seductive it can be - even as he discovers that fraud and perhaps even murder underpin his family's fortune. The Devil to Pay is a mystery rich in tension, racetrack atmosphere, and race scenes as dramatic as any being written today.
From Publishers Weekly
After stumbling out of the starting gate, Daniel's racing thriller soon finds its stride with heart-stopping steeple-chase scenes and a plot that twists through nasty family secrets. Nick Storr, spoiled scion and rising-star jockey of classy Waylands stables, is abruptly and publicly sacked by his father, Perry, and Perry's second wife, Deirdre. Stable owner Maria Thornton, an earlier victim of Perry's rage, lures Nick from a drunken stupor onto her horses and into her revenge plans, spurring him to dig into his father's mucky past. Nick's mother helps, too, revealing some unlovely truths about Perry's acquisition of Waylands, which was bequeathed to him upon the death of a young widow many years earlier. Attacks by thugs mark Nick's progress until he is momentarily deflected by a job from his father's friend, mobster Chris Wildman. An arsonist--hired by Perry--torches Nick's mother's modest stable yard, setting Nick back on course and in real peril until he puts his main threat out of the running. Writing like Dick Francis without kid gloves, Daniel ( Unbridled ) layers multiple surprises into the extended conclusion of this rewarding tale of a rough-edged racing crowd.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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