When race track owners who have banned prominent race horse owner, Ted Tilley, begin being murdered under strange circumstances, Jack Doyle steps in to tryand solve the crimes. He almost finds more than he bargained for this time.

Inquiry

Sports & Outdoors

McEvoy, John

Individual Sports

Global Authors Publishers

Jack Doyle, ex-boxer and ex-advertising exec, is hired as publicity director for a struggling suburban Chicago horse-race track owned by heiress Celia McCann, who is under pressure to close it and sell the property to real-estate developers.

Close Call: Library Edition

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Blackstone Pub

Ex-amateur boxer and failed advertising account executive Jack Doyle, hero of Blind Switch, returns to the world of thoroughbred horse racing at a suburban Chicago track. With the help of furrier-to-the-mob Moe Kellman, Doyle is hired as publicity director at Monee Park - a struggling racetrack owned by heiress Celia McCann. Celia, whose husband is afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease, is fighting to keep the business afloat while awaiting passage of a law allowing the introduction of lucrative video slot machines. She's determined to maintain the business inherited from her beloved uncle Jim Joyce. However, she is under pressure from her co-heir and cousin, Niall Hanratty, to close the track and sell the valuable property to real estate developers. Niall will stop at nothing to convince Celia to sell, even hiring thugs from Chicago's Canaryville neighborhood to help persuade her. Can the exploits of star sprinter Rambling Rosie save the track? Or will Doyle hold the key? Written from an insider's viewpoint, and featuring a robust cast of offbeat characters, Close Call provides entertaining insight into the unique world of American horse racing with a climax as exciting as a Derby photo finish.

Close Call

ReadHowYouWant

Why are some of America's best and most respected jockeys suddenly losing big races? And who would kill a ninety-two-year-old bookmaker? ''McEvoy has created a winning protagonist in Chicago turf writer Matt O'Connor, who has an abundance of friends in mostly low places and his finger firmly on the pulse of the national horseracing scene.... [He] is dead-on in his descriptions and accounts of Thoroughbred racing. He also gives us characters we can care about and suspense enough to make the blood race like a stakes-winning sprinter.'' - Booklist starred review ''Horse racing has always attracted a wide range of colorful characters, and McEvoy portrays them all with an obvious affection and a sharp eye, from jockeys, trainers and touts to fans, newsmen and suckers.... charm, racing expertise and a willingness to go the distance that will carry the reader all the way to the finish line.''

Riders Down

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Pets & Animal Care

Irreverent Chicago racetrack publicist Jack Doyle, former advertising man and amateur boxer, accepts a new job as a thoroughbred jockey's agent. His client is a seventeen-year-old riding phenom from Ireland named Mickey Sheehan. Mickey and Jack prove to be an effective team until someone begins secretly doping the horses, affecting race results.
 In his quest to identify the culprit, Doyle is aided by his old friend Moe Kellman, furrier-to-the-Mob; trainer Ralph Tenuta, himself the target of a blackmailer; and young veterinarian Ingrid McGuire, a talented horse communicator. The action moves from Chicago's Heartland Downs to New York's famed Saratoga Race Course, even stepping aboard Mob capo Fifi Bonadio's lavish yacht in Chicago's Belmont Harbor. Will Jack's persistent push for answers get him killed?

Photo Finish: A Jack Doyle Mystery (Jack Doyle Series)

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Poisoned Pen Press

Irreverent Chicago racetrack publicist Jack Doyle, former advertising man and amateur boxer, accepts a new job as a thoroughbred jockey's agent. His client is a seventeen-year-old riding phenom from Ireland named Mickey Sheehan. Mickey and Jack prove to be an effective team until someone begins secretly doping the horses, affecting race results.In his quest to identify the culprit, Doyle is aided by his old friend Moe Kellman, furrier-to-the-Mob; trainer Ralph Tenuta, himself the target of a blackmailer; and young veterinarian Ingrid McGuire, a talented horse communicator. The action moves from Chicago's Heartland Downs to New York's famed Saratoga Race Course, even stepping aboard Mob capo Fifi Bonadio's lavish yacht in Chicago's Belmont Harbor. Will Jack's persistent push for answers get him killed?

Photo Finish (Jack Doyle Series, 4)

Photo Finish: A Jack Doyle Mystery (Jack Doyle Series, 4)

Desperate Jack Doyle accepts a sketchy job which leads to a deadly game of fixing horse races and murder--of the four-legged kind.... One-time amateur boxer Jack Doyle, an irreverent and rebellious advertising account representative, goes to work one fine Chicago day and finds his desk--and his job--both gone. A two-time loser at the marriage game as well, Doyle, usually ultra-confident, fishes himself out of a bottle to take stock, realizing, "with a thumping finality, that Life sure as hell did have his number and was crunching it."~At loose ends, Doyle accepts a most unusual offer from an acquaintance, Moe Kellman, "furrier to the Mob," to fix a horse race. The context of making the deal, a Cubs game at storied Wrigley Field, sets the tone for the drama that follows. Thus begins a chain of events that will lead the FBI to Doyle's door where they "coopt" him into a quest after people who are maiming or killing thoroughbred horses for their insurance values. Their number one target is a loathsome media mogul who can't bear to lose at anything.~Built upon recent factual events, spiced with satire and peppered throughout with engaging loonies, Blind Switch is a noteworthy first novel with a hero forced to ask in its ultimate line, "Where have I gone right?"

Blind Switch (Jack Doyle Series, 1)

Irreverent Jack Doyle has worn many hats, one or two blown off by his irrepressible temper. A former boxer, advertising rep, and publicity man, Jack’s midlife career has been shaped by the world of thoroughbred horse racing and dark deeds therein. So it’s no surprise when two FBI agents he’s sleuthed with before pressure him to identify an animal activist who is carrying out “mercy killings” of retired race horses donated to Midwestern university veterinary schools. Plus two Chicago senior citizens are being threatened by an imperious Internet millionaire intent on owning their beloved horse. Then a call comes from Ireland where the life of Jack’s friend Niall Hanratty, the noted bookmaker, is under attack from an unknown enemy. Meanwhile Doyle’s nemesis Harvey Rexroth, the rapacious media mogul Jack helped put into federal prison, enlists a fellow inmate, a Mobconnected attorney, to have Jack killed. Carrying out this contract will be W. D. Wiems, a brilliant, frighteningly warped University of Kansas student who has eagerly launched a career of murder for hire. Fast tracking, Jack visits vet schools while juggling pieces of investigations near home and traveling twice to Ireland where his quest to find Hanratty’s enemy takes him to Kinsale, Connemara, and a Dublin slum. Meanwhile the vicious contract killer is, all unknown, tracking Jack…

High Stakes (Jack Doyle Series)

United States

High Stakes (Jack Doyle Series, 6)

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