cover image Dead on Course

Dead on Course

Glenis Wilson. Severn, $28.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8544-9

Wilson’s second murder mystery featuring British jump jockey Harry Radcliffe (after Dead Certainty) opens strongly enough, with the compelling opening line, “I knew I was a target when I opened the cottage door that morning and found, sitting on the doorstep, a pair of false teeth.” The dentures belonged to a fellow jockey, Carl Smith, whose murdered corpse Harry discovered in a lavatory in the prior book. Soon afterward, Harry gets a threatening note from Carl’s brother, Jake, and when the two men meet up, Jake demands that Harry investigate the supposedly accidental death of his sister, Jo-Jo, or face the prospect of bodily harm to the attractive grown daughter of a horse owner whom Harry’s ridden for. Jake denies leaving his brother’s dentures outside Harry’s home. Harry ends up tackling numerous murders, but he’s not the most impressive of detectives, and the plot doesn’t live up to the intriguing start. [em]Agent: David Grossman, David Grossman Literary Agency (U.K.). (Dec.) [/em]