| Title | : | High Stakes: A Jack Doyle Mystery |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1464202745 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781464202742 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 250 |
| Publication | : | First published August 5, 2014 |
Dignity.” Thousands of miles away, Irish bookmaker Niall Hanratty’s life is under threat from an unknown person or persons.
Called upon to find the culprits in each case is former ad executive, amateur boxer, and jockey agent Jack Doyle, his usual irreverent, opinionated and sharp-eyed self in this, the fifth horse racing mystery of the series featuring him as an intriguing amateur sleuth.
Unbeknownst to Doyle, he himself is the target for murder financed by Harvey Rexroth, the wealthy media mogul now imprisoned as a result of Doyle’s earlier efforts. Rexroth has hired the memorably frightening and efficient young villain W. D. Wiems for this revengeful assignment.
Reappearing in this fourth Jack Doyle novel are furrier-to-the-Mob Moe Kellman, Chicago Mob chief Fifi Bonadio, horse trainer Ralph Tenuta, beautiful horse communicator Ingrid McGuire, and ambitious Irish journalist Nora Sheehan.
As usual, this McEvoy novel features lively dialogue and several uniquely colorful characters, including an Irish hit man with hands “so powerful strong he could pop a man’s brains right up out of his skull”, and former Chicago Blackstone Rangers gang officer Dujuan Coleman.
The rapid action moves from Chicago to Kansas City to a Wisconsin federal prison to Ireland as Doyle deals with this three-tiered challenge of finding a secret horse killer, an Irish villain, and attempting to elude the hired assassin who has dead aim on him.
High Stakes: A Jack Doyle Mystery Reviews
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John McEvoy in his new book, “High Stakes” Book Six in the Jack Doyle Mystery series published by Poisoned Pen Press gives us another adventure with Jack Doyle.
From the back cover: Irreverent Jack Doyle has worn many hats, one or two blown off by his irrepressible temper. A former boxer, advertising rep, and publicity man, Jack’s midlife career has been shaped by the world of thoroughbred horse racing and dark deeds therein. So it’s no surprise when two FBI agents he’s sleuthed with before pressure him to identify an animal activist who is carrying out “mercy killings” of retired race horses donated to Midwestern university veterinary schools. Plus two Chicago senior citizens are being threatened by an imperious Internet millionaire intent on owning their beloved horse. Then a call comes from Ireland where the life of Jack’s friend Niall Hanratty, the noted bookmaker, is under attack from an unknown enemy. Meanwhile Doyle’s nemesis Harvey Rexroth, the rapacious media mogul Jack helped put into federal prison, enlists a fellow inmate, a Mob-connected attorney, to have Jack killed. Carrying out this contract will be W. D. Wiems, a brilliant, frighteningly warped University of Kansas student who has eagerly launched a career of murder for hire. Fast tracking, Jack visits vet schools while juggling pieces of investigations near home and traveling twice to Ireland where his quest to find Hanratty’s enemy takes him to Kinsale, Connemara, and a Dublin slum. Meanwhile the vicious contract killer is, all unknown, tracking Jack…
The title tells it all, “High Stakes”. There is not one but four separate story lines going on and Jack Doyle has to solve them all, especially because one of them is a contract on his life. Someone is euthanizing retired thoroughbreds donated to university veterinary schools. Someone is trying to kill Jack’s friend, Niall Hanratty, in Ireland and a rich computer wizard is trying to intimidate an elderly couple into selling their promising racehorse. Jack only has the summer to figure all these cases out. Danger, excitement and murder all figure into this highly complicated plot. These are fascinating characters that seem very real working on a super tight time-table. “High Stakes” is loaded with twists and turns that will leave you guessing all the while you are flipping pages to find out what happens next. I am so glad I found Mr. McEvoy and am so looking forward to the next book in this series.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Poisoned Pen Press. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” -
This is my second book of the jack Doyle mystery series. I read another because I stayed in the Scottwood B&B mentioned in The Significant Seven. This book's hired killer was a 4.0 senior at KU-Lawrence campus and A deranged Internet wizard. So this connection-I am both a Lawrence gal and a KU graduAte gave this book the 4th star.
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Great fast-paced mystery involving thoroughbreds, race track characters and the Irish. How could you go wrong with that combination.
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I gave up quickly. Some books you can just tell are all plot and no character development. Snappy or sarcastic dialog and not much else was in evidence here.
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Pedestrian mystery--short on suspense, long on uninteresting events.
