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 . . .

Steve Cline thought surviving his first investigation was the hardest thing he’d ever face. He was wrong. Still reeling from the physical and psychological fallout of At Risk, Steve is thrown into turmoil when his estranged father dies suddenly—and he learns a devastating truth: the man being laid to rest was never his biological father. His real father is Christopher J. Kessler, a respected Thoroughbred trainer on the Maryland circuit.

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.