Jack Doyle Mysteries

Jack Doyle, ex—amateur boxer and failed advertising account executive, returns to the world of thoroughbred horse racing when he is hired as publicity director for Monee Park, a struggling suburban Chicago track owned by heiress Celia McCann. McCann is determined to maintain the business, which was inherited from a beloved uncle. She finds various exploits to keep the business afloat while awaiting passage of a law allowing the introduction of lucrative video slot machines at Monee Park. But meanwhile, McCann is under pressure from the other heir, her cousin, Niall Hanratty, who wants to close the track and sell the valuable property to real-estate developers. Jack Doyle is called on to help Celia's cause, again a somewhat reluctant knight-errant, who rises to the occasion when needed.

Seven lifelong friends and racing fans since their university days strike it lucky at Saratoga Race Course when they combine to win a million-dollar race. They use some of their profits to buy racehorses, one of which, The Badger Express, turns out to be a sensational runner, stallion, and moneymaker. Then years later, the men begin dying, one by one, targets of a professional assassin. The always irreverent Jack Doyle returns to the racetrack, volunteering to aid FBI agents in a search for criminals fixing races and gets involved in the investigation of the murders of the Significant Seven, while also finding himself protecting Renee Rison, the favored daughter of the Significant Seven's leader, Arnie Rison.

Jack Doyle, former advertising man, amateur boxer, and Chicago racetrack publicist, undertakes a new job in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing: jockey agent. His client is Mickey Sheehan, a seventeen-year-old female riding phenomenon from Ireland, who has decided to try her luck in the States. She and Doyle prove an effective team, until someone secretly begins administering dangerous illegal medications to horses. In his quest to identify the culprit, the shrewd, irreverent, and always opinionated Doyle gets help from his friends Moe Kellman, furrier to the Mob; trainer Ralph Tenuta, himself the target of a blackmailer; and young veterinarian Ingrid McGuire, a greatly talented horse communicator. Meanwhile, Jack and Moe become co-owners of a promising, bargain-priced horse named Plotkin, who provides several thrills, not all of them welcome. Then as Plotkin is entered in a big race, the million-dollar Heartland Downs Futurity, the sibling rivalry between Mickey and her occasionally race-manipulating brother Kieran, one of Ireland's top jockeys, flares up and comes to a climax with Mickey aboard Plotkin. From Chicago's Heartland Downs racetrack to New York's famed Saratoga Race Course, Doyle is detoured to Mob chieftain Fifi Bonadio's lavish yacht in Chicago's Belmont Harbor. Will the favor he agrees to do for Fifi get him killed, or will it be his persistent push for answers to the horse doping? As an amateur investigator in the world of American racing, Doyle is sometimes mistaken but always dogged in his search for answers. The challenges he faces in attempting to halt the horse drugging and the threat to Tenuta's life are the most daunting of his colorful career.