For horseplayer and jazz pianist Matt Bosch it looks easy. All he has to do is meet an entrepreneur in South America, secure a signature for a new off-shore race track, and collect a hundred grand. But when he gets there, he finds himself on an obstacle course of seemingly insurmountable traps. He becomes embroiled in a violent land conflict, is forced to do business with an unsavory underworld, and collides with the principled opposition of his own wife. An exotic call girl supposedly comes to the rescue, but what ultimate sacrifice is she demanding in return? Along the way, he continues his search for the elusive automatic bet, making discoveries that are only possible to envision from afar. He wonders whether he'll ever be able to return to his favorite spot by the rail at Laurel.
Dead Heat is a story of obsessions--of people driven to pursue their dreams and their desires at whatever cost. The haunted young woman who shows up one day outside the horse trainer, Jake Fontana's tack room at the Santa Anita racetrack is not merely looking for work, but has an agenda: she wants to become a great race rider.
Ex-amateur boxer and failed advertising account executive Jack Doyle, hero of Blind Switch, returns to the world of thoroughbred horse racing at a suburban Chicago track in this new thriller by the author of award-winning Riders Down. Written from an insider's viewpoint, and featuring a robust cast of offbeat characters, Close Call provides entertaining insight into the unique world of American horse racing with a climax as exciting as a Derby photo finish.
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. Kellmans question for Matt: Was the death of ninety-two-year-old Bernard Glockner, Chicago's oldest active bookmaker, suicide or murder? 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.
Desperate Jack Doyle accepts a sketchy job which leads to a deadly game of fixing horse races and murder--of the four-legged kind. Built upon recent factual events, spiced with satire and peppered throughout with engaging loonies, Blind Switch is a noteworthy first novel with a hero forced to ask in its ultimate line, "Where have I gone right?"
