Steve Cline Mysteries

This stirring first mystery is set in Maryland’s rich horse country where Steve Cline seems, at twenty-one, much too young to be in charge of a major stable. Seasoned by summers on a dude ranch, his skills and stamina are sorely tested when he’s hijacked early one morning along with some of the stable’s horses. His escape turns him into a killer’s target in an environment where a complex scheme develops and everyone, no matter how innocent, courts risks . . .

What do you do when everything you’ve held to be true, when your entire life, in fact, turns out to be a lie? When 22-year-old Steve Cline learns that he’s illegitimate, and his real father is a racehorse trainer, he heads to the Maryland track. Steve’s father recruits him to work undercover in an effort to discover who’s been doping his most promising horses, and he quickly gets caught up in the unique lifestyle inherent to the backside. But it is not a life without peril because some men are willing to do anything to get the right horse under the wire first.

When Bruce Claremont quit his job working on a thoroughbred breeding farm and vanished, his sister Corey asks barn manager Steve Cline for help. So Steve slips into Bruce’s world, and the more he learns, the more he suspects that Corey may never see her brother again. Because all is not as it seems in this pastoral setting where secrets and jealousies and obsessions are the norm, and the present seems to be repeating its fiery past. If Steve’s not very careful, he just might get burned . . .

Although Steve Cline doesn't expect to stray far from the horse world, he has enrolled in a private investigations course and is working on the final project. But when his father, horse trainer Chris Kessler, invites him to Louisville on an all-expense-paid vacation that will culminate with the running of the Kentucky Derby, how can he refuse? Except, it isn't really a vacation. Kessler has a Derby runner and needs a reliable fill-in when one of his employees is injured. With only two horses to care for, the workload is light, and Steve decides to get that class project out of the way.