High Stakes by John McEvoy

First off let me just preface this by saying I have not ready any of the other Jack Doyle mysteries. This is my first one. But I absolutely love the fact that it takes place in the Chicagoland area since that is where I grew up. I loved reading about places I had either been to before or places I have heard of. The familiarity definitely drew me to this book. While I’m not a huge horse fan, I do find them to be beautiful creatures and I enjoyed this book’s twist on murder mystery with the murder being that of retired horses.

I also thought it was really interesting that in the first chapter we witness a murder taking place and the suspect is narrowed down and revealed to be female. At times the changing perspectives could be confusing, but after a paragraph or two, I always got right back into the action of the story. The writing was good in this book, it seemed to be a good mix of description and matter-of-fact statements. This style worked well with the genre and plot.

Jack Doyle is an interesting “detective” if you can even call him that. He just has a way of understanding what is going on and in this case, he knows people in the business and that is what allows him to figure it all out. This book kept me guessing up until the end. And it still surprised me how it all worked out. I also really enjoyed the Chicago humor in the Epilogue.

*I received an ARC of this book from Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review*

✶ ✶ ✶ and 1/2 Stars