Steve Cline Mysteries

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 race- horse 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. REVIEWS: "Hidden away from the glittering stage of thoroughbred racing, with its flashing silks and gleaming horseflesh, is a place they call ''the backside.'' In her second stable mystery, DEAD MAN'S TOUCH, Kit Ehrman refers to this behind-the-scenes area -- where trainers, grooms, barn managers and stable hands minister around the clock to the needs of their high-strung charges -- as ''a world unto itself.'' Ehrman, who has worked at show barns and breeding farms, strikes a solid claim to this gritty territory with another heels-up thriller that takes up where Dick Francis left off. In the barn. Steve Cline, the young stable hand who made such a strong and sympathetic hero in ''At Risk,'' searches out the father he never knew, a thoroughbred trainer at a Maryland racetrack, and signs on as a ''hot-walker,'' a lowly exercise worker, when he discovers that someone has been fixing races by tampering with his father's horses. In true Francis tradition, Steve takes plenty of physical punishment as a sleuth. But his undercover role also gives him the inside track on life as it's lived on the backside, a grueling, even squalid existence that pays off in the chance to get close to the magnificent animals that have more character and heart than the two-footed fools who view them as a commodity." --Marilyn Stasio, NY Times -- -This text refers to the hardcover edition.

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 . . . From Publisher's Weekly: Ehrman's knowledge and exposition of life on a horse farm is most impressive and enjoyable. From Booklist: Ehrman skillfully ratchets up the suspense en route to a surprising conclusion that nonetheless makes perfect sense. That is to say she fully engages the reader, then leaves him or her satisfied. What more could you ask of a mystery? From The Daily Oakland Press: "COLD BURN is a terrific, engaging novel full of bits of horse breeding arcana, and a more complex and realistic view of life and death - and birth - than can usually be found in the standard mystery novel."

Although 23-year-old barn manager 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, racehorse trainer Chris Kessler, invites him to Louisville on a two-week, all-expense-paid vacation that will culminate with the running of the Kentucky Derby, how can he refuse? Except, it isn't really a vaction. 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--a simple records search. But the very act of initiating the project triggers a chance encounter that plunges Steve into the world of the ultra rich. A world where greed and revenge and ambition drive some men to commit unspeakable acts amid the pageantry and glamour of thoroughbred racing. In quick order, Steve finds himself the prime suspect in a murder investigation and the target of brutal thugs. From the relative security of the backside to the Derby festivities that transform downtown Louisville into Party Central to the opulence of a Lexington horse farm, Steve deals with his own personal demons and strained relationships as he attempts to stop a murderer before a power play culminates in shattered dreams and a bloody triple cross.... Kit Ehrman is the award-winning author of TRIPLE CROSS, Cold Burn, Dead Man's Touch, and At Risk. TRIPLE CROSS has been recognized as Best Book of Indiana, IPPY Award medalist, ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year medalist, Kentucky Literary Award Nominee, Great Lakes Book Award Nominee, and a Book Sense Notable Book. Ehrman's decades-long career in the horse world-hotwalking racehorses, managing elite show barns, delivering foals-brings unmatched authenticity to every scene.

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. REVIEWS "It's amazing what horses can do for a mystery. Kit Ehrman's debut novel, AT RISK . . . reeks of authenticity, and the hunters and jumpers have personality to burn. When seven of these horses are stolen in the dead of night, Stephen Cline, the 21-year-old barn manager . . . in the honored tradition of a Dick Francis hero, vows to track down the thieves . . ." ~ The New York Times "With his youthful zeal and perseverance, Steve Cline makes a captivating hero and sleuth, one readers will be eager to see again." Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. "The smart money could make the unusually likable protagonist a favorite in the Francis Stakes." ~ Kirkus "At best, only a small fraction of first novels turn out to be first in a series (why assume that success for At Risk?) The overarching reason is that its author is thoughtful and clever, as well as skilled. Ehrman's writing is unobtrusively crisp . . . The plot is intricate, intriguing, and solid in the best traditional style . . ." ~The Drood Review --Reviews refers to the hardcover edition.