The Dark Side of Town

February 12, 2018
Hill’s fast-paced sequel to 2017’s Flamingo Road takes ex-cop Fia McKee, now working for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, to New York’s legendary Saratoga Race Course, where she goes undercover as a stable hand to check out trainer Marzio “Mars” Pizzuti. One foggy morning near a training track, Fia hears a gunshot. An apprentice jockey who had just arrived from South America apparently shot himself dead. This inexplicable tragedy adds further urgency to her investigation of Pizzuti. Rumored to have a penchant for doping horses and blackmailing jockeys, Pizzuti is also alleged to have ties to organized crime. When aspiring jockey Stevie Davis is given his big break, but runs afoul of Pizzuti and his business partners, Fia learns that Stevie and his younger sister have been threatened. After another body turns up, it’s game on for Fia and Calixto Coyune, another operative, who’s posing as her new paramour. Fans of horse racing and everyone else will find this tale of love, lust, greed, and family ties an enjoyable ride. Agent: Ann Collette, Helen Rees Literary Agency.

February 15, 2018
The sport of kings is sullied by underhanded dealings.Fia McKee may have left the Baltimore PD under a cloud, but she's redeemed herself by uncovering a nasty scheme at Gulfstream Park (Flamingo Road, 2017) while working for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau. Now she's undercover as hot walker Fay Mason at the historic racetrack in Saratoga, New York, where she's taken a job with trainer Mars Pizutti, who's suspected of dirty dealings, filing fake workout times, and using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. In the wake of a jockey's suicide, Mars seems to be putting pressure on his new jockey, Stevie Davis, to throw some races his horses should win. Also undercover is Fia's colleague from the TRPB, drop-dead sexy Cuban-American trainer Calixto Coyune, the son of a wealthy coffee mogul, who conceals his investigation by working as an assistant trainer and plans to get close to Fia by romantic overtures she's all too eager to accept. Fia's problems are intensified by a call from her brother asking her to meet with their mother, Joan Gorman, a woman who left her family behind 17 years ago to marry a wealthy racing enthusiast with a summer home in Saratoga. Fia resists because she's bitter over being deserted and then left completely alone by the death of her beloved father, a trainer whose murder has never been solved. When she and Calixto attend a cocktail party at the Gorman house, they spot several disreputable characters, and Fia finds her stepfather's partner, Matt Percy, dead in a bathroom. The investigation goes downhill from there. The involvement of the New York mob spells danger for Fia, who's never been known for holding back.Sound racing lore mixes with sex and murder to provide a blood-soaked edge-of-your-seat thriller.

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Starred review from March 1, 2018
Hill brings an insider's knowledge (she was an amateur steeplechase jockey who bred, raised, and rode horses for more than 30 years) to the world of high-stakes racing and accompanying crime. This second in the series (following Flamingo Road, 2017), again featuring Fia McKee, a former Baltimore cop who now works undercover for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB). McKee's current assignment takes her undercover as a hot walker on the track and deep in the stables of the historic Saratoga Racetrack, where the TRPB wants her to keep an eye on a trainer whose horses seem to win far too many races. McKee's almost invisible role as a walker gives her access to overheard conversations and suspicious movements. More than anything, it gives the reader an absolutely gripping view of the many-layered world of the racetrack, where wealthy owners, down-and-out immigrants, and hit-bottom former jockeys work closely with horses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The suicide of a jockey at the track leads McKee deeper into her investigation of the racehorse trainer and his crooked dealings?and, of course, McKee's own life is up for grabs. Filled with sense-laden descriptions and ever-tightening suspense, this is gripping mystery fare and a terrific successor to the racecourse mystery world first carved out by Dick Francis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)