Flamingo Road
A Mystery
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Baltimore police officer Fia McKee is put on leave for excessive use of force after interfering in a crime that turns deadly. Given a second chance, she is sent to work undercover for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB) at the Gulfstream Park in Florida, where she works as an exercise rider. Her assignment is to watch and report back on two racetrack workers who have been suspected of illegal activities and whose horses continue to outperform all expectations, winning their owners unseemly amounts of money in the races.
To complete her cover story, Fia moves in with her semi-estranged brother, Patrick, who lives near the racetrack. Her investigations are complicated when her niece, Jilly, disappears after a shadow gang takes Jilly’s beloved horse. Now Fia must work two angles—first to find out what’s really going on with the men who might or might not be gaming the system, and second to bring the men who prey on horses to justice. Along the way, Fia encounters Cuban gangs living off the grid, a (very handsome) do-gooder who’s close on their trail, and a cabal of super wealthy gamblers who will stop at nothing to ensure they always win.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While perhaps not in the winner's circle, this horse-racing series launch from Hill (Full Mortality) earns at least a show. The powers that be encourage Baltimore cop Fia McKee to become an agent with the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau after a shooting leaves her in hot water with internal affairs. Meanwhile, Fia's brother, Patrick, whose wife has left him, needs her help with his troubled 15-year-old daughter, Jilly, who's scared of a horse-butchering ring active near their home in Broward County, Fla. Fortunately, the TRPB wants Fia undercover at the nearby Gulfstream Park racetrack investigating what appears to be an unknown performance-enhancing drug, so she's able to pursue the two different cases simultaneously. Hill skirts some clich s, with Fia checking off boxes for beautiful, headstrong, and tough as nails, while Jilly plays the bratty and horse-obsessed teen. Still, she does a good job developing the horse-racing background, as well as depicting the criminals who populate the C-Nine Basin (aka the Wild West of Florida).)
