"Game" and "Steamroller": Two Nicki Latrelle Mysteries

Sasscer Hill

Description

This volume collects both of Sasscer Hill's Nicki Latrelle short stories, featuring the jockey/amateur detective in the world of horse racing: GAME and STEAMROLLER.

“If you miss the late Dick Francis’s racetrack thrillers, you’ll be intrigued by Sasscer Hill’s Racing From Death.” —The Washington Post, August 29, 2012"

Informations

• Publié par: Wildside Press LLC
• Date de parution: 30 janvier 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781479436491
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
PRAISE FOR THE NIKKI LATRELLE MYSTERY SERIES
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
GAME
STEAMROLLER


COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2018 by Linda Sasscer Hill.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com


PRAISE FOR THE NIKKI LATRELLE MYSTERY SERIES
“First-time novelist Hill, herself a Maryland horse breeder, is a genuine find, writing smooth and vivid descriptive prose about racetrack characters and backstretch ambience that reek authenticity.”
—Jon L. Breen
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine ,
February, 2011.
“The gritty, exciting Full Mortality by Sasscer Hill . . . a thrilling, eye-opening read written by a former steeplechase jockey who now breeds racehorses. Hill knows what she’s writing about.”
—Betty Webb Mystery Scene Magazine , Winter Issue 2011
“When Nikki Latrelle swings into the saddle and takes the reins, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. This is a major new talent and the comparisons to Dick Francis are not hyperbole.”
—Margaret Maron, New York Times Bestselling author and winner of the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards.
“If you like the work of Dick Francis or Sue Grafton, you will like Sasscer Hill. With a true insider’s knowledge of horse racing, Hill brings us Nikki Latrelle, a young jockey placed in harm’s way who finds the courage to fight the odds and the heart to race for her dreams.”
—Mike Battaglia, NBC racing analyst and TV host, veteran track announcer, and “morning line” odds maker for the Kentucky Derby


AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
“Game” was my first published work. This short story about gambling and deceit appeared in an obscure journal in upstate New York in 2007. It is the story that launched the Nikki Latrelle Horse Racing series. It is the story that, rewritten, became chapter three of Full Mortality .
When I retrieved this piece, I had forgotten that Nikki Latrelle’s first name was originally spelled Nicky, or that Jim Ravinsky was originally Jim Lavinsky until a fellow writer pointed out that I shouldn’t have Latrelle, Carla, and Lavinsky in the same novel – too many “L” words.
“Game” features a character named Joan who does not appear in the later novels, and, the very first and more detailed appearance of Will Marshall who plays an increasingly important role in the three-book trilogy of Full Mortality , Racing from Death , and The Sea Horse Trade .
If you have read Full Mortality , then some of this short story will be familiar, but I promise the ending is new material and very different!
Thanks for reading my story,
—Sasscer Hill


GAME
Damn, we’d be late. From the passenger seat, I willed the road to spin faster beneath us. My peripheral vision caught the tension in Joan’s jaw, her hard grip on the steering wheel as she pushed the aging Chevy. August heat seared my face through the open windows, and undulated off the hot asphalt unwinding before us.
The dash clock said fifteen minutes to check into the jockey’s room. I’d lose a ride on a horse that had a shot to win and someone else would snag the $40 jock’s fee. “I’m trying, Nikki,” said Joan, the fingers of one hand tap dancing on the wheel. “This car . . . .” She rammed the accelerator, the car shuddered and she eased up. “Piece of crap.”
“At least you have a car,” I said. And plenty of time for her two rides late in the program. But she risked a speeding violation to make my deadline, and Joan, not anybody else, had taken a homeless seventeen-year-old under her wing. She’d found out I was a runaway and helped me get work at Maryland’s Laurel Race Track. Two years later, she got her jock’s license, and coaxed our boss, trainer Jim Ravinsky, into putting me on a horse in the mornings, letting me gallop a few, until he saw my gift, my connection with horses.
The Toyota sped over the Potomac River bridge, and far below, white water surged over gray, protruding rocks. Someone down there in a kayak struggled against the surface torrent and deep, hidden undertows.