Photo Finish: A Jack Doyle Mystery

Jack Doyle Mysteries #4

by John McEvoy

Former advertising man, amateur boxer, and track publicist Jack Doyle undertakes a new job in the world of thoroughbred horse racing as a jockey’s agent. His client is a seventeen-year-old feminine riding phenom from Ireland named Mickey Sheehan, who has decided to try her luck in the States. They prove to be an effective team until misadventure occurs as the result of someone secretly administering dangerously illegal medications to horses.         In his quest to identify the culprit, the shrewd, irreverent, and always opinionated Doyle is aided by his old friend Moe Kellman, furrier-to-the-Mob; trainer Ralph Tenuta, himself the target of a blackmailer; and young veterinarian Ingrid McGuire, a greatly talented horse communicator. Jack and Moe become co-owners of a talented, bargain-priced colt named Plotkin, who provides several thrills, not all of them welcome. Mickey’s sibling rivalry with her occasionally race-manipulating brother Kieran, one of Ireland’s top jockeys, comes to a climax with Mickey aboard Plotkin in the million dollar Heartland Downs Futurity.        The primary setting is the Chicago area racetrack Heartland Downs. Other major scenes take place at New York’s famed Saratoga Race Course and aboard Mob chieftain Fifi Bonadio’s lavish yacht in Chicago’s Belmont Harbor.         Doyle is sometimes mistaken but invariably persistent in his search for answers. The challenges he faces in attempting to halt the horse drugging and the threat to Tenuta’s life are the most daunting of his colorful career as an amateur investigator in the world of American racing.

Genres: Horses, Mystery

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2012

About the author

John McEvoy, former editor and senior correspondent for Daily Racing Form, is the author of five non-fiction books on thorougbred horse racing, including the award-winning Great Horse Racing Mysteries. Photo Finish is his fifth mystery novel and fourth featuring the adventurous Jack Doyle. One of McEvoy's earlier novels, Riders Down, won a Ben Franklin Award. He and his wife Judy live in Evanston, Illinois.

Reviews

[Avalon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Racehorse mystery

This book is full of suspense and intrigue. If you like reading Dick Francis, you will enjoy this author as similar style. It has you guessing all the way through the book with endearing characters. For racing fans, this is a must read

[Gloria Feit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shades of Mr. Ed, the talking horse of the eponymous television program: A veterinarian who receives communications from her equine patients plays a vital role in this latest Jack Doyle racetrack thriller. An Irish bookie convinces Jack to take on a 17-year-old female jockey, Mickey Sheehan, as her agent, setting the stage for another intriguing episode in his life, during which he’s been a boxer, racetrack publicist, and advertising man, among other things. When Mickey and her older sister arrive from the Emerald Isle, Jack gains not only a client but a lover.

An immediate sensation, Mickey wins races and becomes the darling of track personnel and the public. She wins her first race atop Plotkin, a horse Jack and his friend, Moe Kellman, furrier-to-the-mob, bought for $50,000. All goes well until someone with a grudge against the trainer of Plotkin begins doping the animal, resulting in Mickey having a serious fall, weeks before a million-dollar race in which she’s to be pitted against another top Irish horse ridden by her brother.

The series is reminiscent of the Dick Francis novels, and the plots flow as smoothly as the horses gliding through the turf. The author, as in the previous entries in the series, writes with realism, with accurate racetrack descriptions, and this fifth chapter in the Doyle series is heartily recommended.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

. This is McEvoy’s fourth racing mystery starring Jack Doyle. Doyle, who has had a checkered career ranging from boxer to ad man, finds various positions in the racing industry in this series. In Photo Finish, he is a jockey agent with one client, an Irish import named Mickey Shannon. Trainer Ralph Tenuda is beset by his horses being drugged. Veteranarian and horse communicator Ingrid McGuire has split up with alcoholic boyfriend and former partner, Eric (who is one of the baddies—McEvoy’s strategy is to reveal their identities to the reader while keeping his protagonist Doyle in the dark which creates tension as one pulls for Doyle to catch on). Various other subplots cast a spotlight on trackside happenings. The writing is brisk and engaging. Racing insiders will also enjoy allusion to actual folks, or slightly disguised variants. As a former editor of the Daily Racing Form, McEvoy is spot-on in capturing the microcosm of the racetrack.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a First read winner. I won it and liked it. This is a Jack Doyle mystery and I have not read the others but will be checking them out too. There are many things going on as the trainer, Tenuta of the horse Plotkin has someone working against him as well as his nephew who is angry with him for not giving him horse betting tips. Then you have Nora and Mickey who come from Ireland so Mickey can be a jockey with Jack as her agent. It works well for them and she does great though there was one slight miss in that the story states that their parents are alive but in . There is also the stories of the vets and what is going on with them. Loved the book and learned a bit about horse racing.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

ack Doyle undertakes a new job in the world of thoroughbred horse racing as a jockey’s agent. His client is a seventeen-year-old Irish feminine rider, Mickey Sheehan. They prove to be an effective team until someone administers illegal medications to horses. What follows is an average mystery, although it is nice to have a different venue, a race track.