Dick Francis

by Laura Crum


My fellow author here on EI, Linda Benson, just let me know that Dick Francis died yesterday, Feb 14th, at the age of 89. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the huge debt I owe to this wonderful author, and to tell a few stories about how kind he was to me.

First off, I’m guessing I don’t have to tell anybody who reads this blog who Dick Francis was. A famous steeple chase jockey in his youth, he began writing mysteries which often centered around horses after he retired from racing. I don’t actually know the total number of books he published, but certainly it must be thirty or so. He was the master of the “horse mystery”, he was my inspiration as an author, and he gave me endless hours of reading pleasure.


I can't say how much Dick Francis' books meant to me. They were entertaining, yes, but he also had a way of describing the human condition that was amazingly accurate and moving. Always understated and subtle, never overwritten, always genuine, Dick Francis' depictions of horses and people and how heroic they can be will live in my mind forever.

Dick Francis had a hugely successful career as a mystery author, winning many awards and gaining great fame. Others can describe his path better than I can, no doubt, so I am going to stick to telling my own “Dick Francis” story, and recount the many, many ways this talented writer and great gentleman influenced my life.

In my twenties I read his books over and over and bemoaned the fact that he only came out with one a year. When the new book was released, I read it right away, and was instantly depressed by the fact that I would now have to wait another year for the next one. And this was the thought that ultimately propelled me into writing my own mystery series. “We need more of these. Maybe I can take my background training cowhorses and use it the way Dick Francis used his racing background, as a setting for horse related mysteries.” And so, at thirty years old, I began writing mysteries, in a very directed attempt to imitate Dick Francis.

I still remember sitting in the barnyard, writing away on a yellow legal pad on my first mystery, “Cutter”. Any time I would get stuck, I would open a Dick Francis novel and read a passage or two, to see how the master did it. And yes, I would say that “Cutter” had a very derivative feel. Several reviewers mentioned this. I was thrilled. I didn’t care if they thought I was a lukewarm reflection of Dick Francis. At least they were linking my name with his.

Right about the time Cutter was published (1994) Dick Francis did a booksigning tour here on the West Coast. I drove to the Bay Area, bearing in my hand a copy of my new book that I had inscribed to him with many thanks for the inspriration he provided. I waited hours in a long line of other fans, and when I was finally standing before the famous author, I humbly presented him with a copy of my own first published novel, even as I got his signature on his new release. Dick Francis received my book with many thanks and great politeness, as was his way. I spent a minute or two chatting with him and then moved on, out of respect to the huge line of fellow fans. And that, I thought, would be that. I got to shake the master’s hand.

To my surprise I received a letter from Dick not but a few weeks later, kindly praising a few strong points in my book and thanking me again. I wrote him back and thus ensued a correspondence between us. When my second book, “Hoofprints” was published, it contained a dedication to Dick Francis, as the author who had inspired me.

Dick wrote that he liked Hoofprints better than Cutter, and that I was improving as an writer. He was unfailingly cheerful and upbeat in his letters, even when he wrote about the hurricane that battered his home on Grand Cayman, and his wife’s illness. He sent me a Christmas card every year, signed, “love, Dick Francis”, and for many, many years he sent me signed copies of his novels when they came out. He was always polite, always gracious, always supportive, and he never failed to answer a letter. I believe that he had many, many correspondences very like the one he had with me, and from what I’ve been told, he made time for all of them. What a gracious person he was, with such a busy life, so much fame, and yet the ability to take time for the many fans who wrote.

I will always be a fan of Dick Francis, and nothing ever pleases me more than to have my books compared to his. Perhaps the greatest compliment I ever got was when Dick wrote and asked if he could borrrow some details from my fifth book, “Slickrock”, which he said he liked very much. I told him to borrow anything he wanted. I told him (truthfully) that I’d be honored.

My signed copies of Dick Francis’ many novels have the place of honor on my bookshelf, and I have a drawer full of his letters and Christmas cards. I will treasure them always. What a great writer, and what a kind and gracious man. Much love to you, dear Dick Francis. May you gallop through green fields again and always.

Get a Free Book

by Laura Crum


That’s right. All you bloggers out there with an active horse blog (by which I mean you update it regularly) can request a free review copy of my new book, “Going, Gone.” Email my publisher (Susan Daniels) at susan@danielpublishing.com and give your blog address, snail mail address, and agreement to post a review of the book on your blog and email Susan a copy of said review when you put it up. The review copies will be mailed out on March 1st (approximately), which is also the deadline for this offer. So get your request in now.

The first review of “Going, Gone” has just come in, and here it is:


Fans of Laura Crum's marvelous series of "equine" mysteries featuring veterinarian Gail McCarthy will certainly remember Lonny Peterson, the guy Gail looked certain to marry during the early years of her literary adventures. So, you can imagine how she'd feel to pay Lonny a visit while on vacation with her husband and child only to discover he's charged with murder.

Naturally, Gail immediately concludes Lonny's innocent and is being framed for the killing of his most recent girl friend and her brother. Will she have time on her vacation to catch the real murderer and help her former lover clear his name? Well, of course she will! But author Crum makes it a most suspenseful and intriguing process, so there's nothing "ho-hum" about this mystery adventure.

I'm an unabashed fan of Laura Crum's mysteries. One obvious reason is that Crum lives in and writes about my home territory--Santa Cruz County, California--where both of us were born and raised. But before I ever came to know Laura, I was a big fan of Dick Francis, his mysteries about horses and the people who deal in them. Though Francis is still writing mysteries with the help of his son, I believe Laura Crum is now doing better "equine" mysteries and should be the heir to Francis' literary domain.

Laura has now written 11 mysteries featuring Gail McCarthy. It has been fun to grow along with Laura and her alter-ego. Gail is now settled into her marriage to husband Blue and raising her little boy, Mac. She's putting on a little weight, but she's certainly not slowing down any--as you will discover in the thrilling climax of "Going, Gone," in which Gail has to ride for her life as the real murderer comes after her bent on putting her out of business forever.

The title comes from the world of horse auctions, which Crum gives us a good taste of while laying out the structure of her mystery plot. The people Lonny is accused of killing were in the auction business and the clues to the real killer are rooted in that world, which Gail has to explore on her own without much help from law enforcement.

This is a fast-moving mystery thriller that you won't want to put down once you're into it. It won't be officially published until April 5, but you can order it now on Amazon.com and the other online book retailers. It's published by Perseverance Press, an imprint of John Daniel & Co., in the larger format trade paperback edition with the slick cover. List price is $14.95, but you will be able to get it for less online.

Perseverance Press has rounded up quite a few of the better series mystery writers who lost their publishers in the recent market reshuffling by the big publishers. It also carries the mysteries of Lora Roberts, Carolyn Wheat, Jeanne M. Dams, Hal Glatzer and several more. These are clean, handsome volumes that will look fine in your mystery library.

They've kept the Gail McCarthy series alive and well, which has made me more than happy to do business with them.

©2010 by Ron Miller.

Ron Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He most recently was the television columnist for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.

Perseverance Press/John Daniel & Co.
http://www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance
Award-Winning Traditional Mysteries for the New Golden Age
Spring 2010: GOING, GONE by Laura Crum and MIDNIGHT FIRES by Nancy Means Wright

Learning to Ride / Learning to Write

By Laura Crum


I’m often asked by readers who would like to become published authors how I was able to achieve that goal. I’ve talked about the long trail that culminated in the sale of my equine mysteries to a major New York publisher (St Martin’s Press) on this site (“One Woman’s Path to Publication”—March 2008). Today I’d like to talk about something even more fundamental—the actual writing.

I’ve always been one to learn by doing, both with my writing and my riding. As a child I took lots of riding lessons (anything to get on a horse), but I never felt I learned as much from this as I did from the long unstructured hours of riding (sometimes on quite difficult horses) at my family’s ranch. As a woman in my twenties, I took many lessons from prominent reining and cutting horse trainers, but it wasn’t until I actually went to work for these guys and spent eight hours a day for many years riding horses for them that the stuff they were trying to teach me finally sunk in.

So, who did teach me to ride? (Or to write?) The short answer is that Lad and Tovy taught me to ride and Dick Francis taught me to write.



I was a horse crazy little girl like so many others. Yes, that’s me on the pony, all of two years old and thrilled to be on a horse. That pony’s name was Tarbaby, and though in the photo I may look like a lucky little girl with her own pet pony, the true story is rather different. My uncle, who owned the pony, fancied himself a horse trader, and having bought the critter cheap, was determined to sell it for a handsome profit. Thus the point of the photo was not to show off my small self on a pony, it was to show prospective buyers that Tarbaby was gentle enough for kids. The notation on the back of the photo says nothing about “Laura”; rather the words are “Pony for Sale.”

This gives you something of a frame of reference for the way in which I “grew up” with horses. My uncle always had them, and I was allowed to ride them out at the family ranch, but no one took much interest in me or my progress; certainly I was not allowed to have a horse of my own until (at fourteen), I had saved up enough money to buy one myself. I did ride my uncle’s horses, many of them “trading horses” like Tarbaby, all through my childhood, and, as you can imagine, I had some interesting experiences.

Still, amongst the runaways, broncos, and various other recalcitrant beasts that I struggled with were two horses that my uncle kept to team rope on and never traded off. These two registered Quarter Horse geldings were gentle, well-broke animals who knew their job, and between the two of them I learned to ride pretty well.

Lad and Tovy were their names: Lad was dark brown with a blaze, Tovy a solid sorrel. My cousin and I rode those horses bareback and double, we rode them sitting backwards, we rode them standing up at the trot and slid off over their tails for a dismount. We jumped them over three foot fences (despite the fact that they were team roping horses and this wasn’t their job description) and galloped them along the creek. Not to mention gathered the cattle and did all the ranch chores on them. Yes, Lad and Tovy taught me to ride.

If you’re wondering how, exactly, Dick Francis taught me to write, well, no, he didn’t personally tutor me. Like so many others, I loved his books and read and re-read them constantly. When, at thirty years of age, I decided to use my background training and competing on western cowhorses to create a mystery series, much as Dick Francis had used his background as a steeplechase jockey to create his own books, you can imagine who I modeled my writing on. Yes, every time I got “stuck” at some place in my first manuscript, I would pull out a Dick Francis novel to see how the master did it. (And yes, I’m sure that Cutter, my first novel, has in some ways a very, shall we say, derivative feel.)

In time, of course, I developed more of a sense of my own voice, though I always admired Dick Francis’ work. I was also honored to meet my “teacher” and have a longtime correspondence with him. In the course of these letters he praised several of my mysteries and actually asked to borrow some bits from one (this was Slickrock). My books have been likened to Dick Francis’ novels by many reviewers, something which always pleases me (see the quote on the cover of Chasing Cans, my most recent novel). However at this point in my career I no longer have the impulse or need to imitate another author; I merely tell the story that comes to me, in my own way. Some say that my later books are better written than my earlier ones, and I like to think that’s true. Nonetheless, I will always credit Dick Francis as my original inspiration and am grateful for his support over the years as well as the example that he set.

There are other ways to learn both riding and writing, of course—horseback lessons and writer’s classes, seminars of both sorts—all these things have their place. But I would like to assure those whose path, like mine, is more of a solitary one, that this can be productive, too. Lots of hours spent horseback and lots of time spent reading authors whose work you admire can pay off every bit as much as instruction and critique when it comes to riding and writing, at least in my opinion.

And since the most entertaining part of this blogging is hearing the responses, I’d like to put this question out there to all the horse people and authors (especially bloggers) who read this post. Anybody else have a take on this subject that you’d like to share? What made you a rider? Or a writer? I know mugwump has been big on continuing instruction, at least in her riding career, and I’m always willing to learn from her, talented trainer and writer that she is.

Oh, and for those who commented on my last post about my skinny horse, I’m happy to report that ET is gaining weight steadily and looks much better than he did even two weeks ago. No ribs showing at all. Thanks for all your input.
Cheers,
Laura

THE GOD OF ANIMALS . . .

by Kit Ehrman

This past week was an interesting one for me as far as reading goes. The sad truth about being a writer is that writing cuts into reading time in a huge way. Lately, I’m lucky to finish a book a month, but I gave in to temptation when a bookseller handed me an advance reader copy of SILKS written by the esteemed Dick Francis and his son Felix Francis. SILKS was a good, solid read--highly recommended for all Francis fans.

Then my sister lent me a debut novel, THE GOD OF ANIMALS by Aryn Kyle, and that’s the topic for today’s post. I was going to hold off reading another book so soon after SILKS, but I opened Kyle’s book--just to read the first page--and that was it. I was sucked in until the very end. This author’s skill blew me away.



THE GOD OF ANIMALS is a coming-of-age story featuring twelve-year-old Alice Winston. She and her family live on a horse ranch in the desert. The Winston ranch had been in the family for generations, and the family has fallen on hard times. Alice’s mother is severely depressed and rarely comes out of her room. Alice’s older sister, Nona, is a natural, gifted rider. Nona’s success in the show ring helped bring in clients, so when she runs off with a rodeo rider, the family has a harder time making ends meet, but more importantly, her leaving deeply hurts Alice. Then we have the father, a complicated individual to be sure. Eventually, he is forced to take in boarders, something he’d never done before. When his father hears of this, he likens it to “prostituting” the ranch.

Okay. What I found so compelling about THE GOD OF ANIMALS is Kyle’s wonderfully descriptive writing and her insight into human nature. The descriptions in this book are absolutely fantastic. Admittedly, there were errors when it came to horse details and a few believability problems, but I happily gave the author a pass. What was very difficult to read, however, was the abuse meted out in this book, the cruel training methods, etc. The abusive scenes were even that much harder to read because of Kyle’s gift for description.

I skimmed the reviews on Amazon, and readers either loved or hated this book. Period. And I can see why. Kyle unflinchingly examines the good and evil that we all possess, and she doesn’t feel she must give us a happy ending, but a realistic one. In a way, that was refreshing because life is messy.

If you read this book, the abuse will bother you. It’s meant to bother you. But this is the kind of read that will stay with you long after you reach The End.

Kit
www.kitehrman.com

HEX . . .

by Kit Ehrman

My sister and I share a passion for equine mysteries which began way back in 1977, when I discovered Dick Francis’s IN THE FRAME--the fateful book that shoved my life’s path off course. After reading ITF, I read every book that Francis had published at the time, quit my government job, and went to work in the horse industry, where I stayed for 25 years.

I also introduced Francis’s mysteries to my sister, and thus began a gift-giving tradition between us. Francis’s books are released in October, so every Christmas thereafter, my sister would give me his latest release. I have to admit, it was sometimes tough waiting those two months before I could get my hands on his next mystery, but the wait was always worth it.

Nowadays, when my sister stumbles upon other equine mysteries, she passes them along to me once she’s read them, and HEX by Maggie Estep was one of those books.



HEX is not your typical equine mystery, though. The main character, Ruby Murphy, eventually goes undercover at Belmont Racetrack; although, the equine element is secondary, story-wise, to Ruby Murphy’s unique life and friends. You could even say that the mystery is in third place--HEX not being your typical mystery. In fact, if no one had been murdered in the entire book, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

What HEX is, is beautifully written, fun, and compelling. The lyrical, intelligent writing comes as no surprise since Estep is a poet. The book’s format is different, as well, consisting of possibly five, first-person, point-of-view narratives.

One horsey aspect that I found quite interesting and unique was the description of a horse stable in Harlem (I believe) near the beach. Okay, New York’s geography is totally obscure to me, so I have no idea if this is even remotely possible, but . . . it sounded cool. I wonder if the place truly exists.

HEX is followed by two other Ruby Murphy mysteries: FLAMETHROWER and GARGANTUAN. I’m looking forward to reading both. For more information, visit Maggie’s website: http://www.maggieestep.com/index.html

Happy reading and riding,
Kit
http://www.kitehrman.com

One Woman's Path to Publication

I've recently been invited to join equestrianink and thought I'd begin by introducing myself and telling the story of the long trail that culminated in the sale of my equine mysteries to a major New York publisher. My name is Laura Crum and I write a mystery series about equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy. The books are set in California and revolve around the world of western horses. Each book deals with a different facet of western horsemanship, as well as a different stage in Gail's life, and all of the books arise out of my thirty years plus experience training and owning horses. Here's a condensed version of my history.

I grew up riding horses for my uncle (a part-time rodeo cowboy who competed at team roping and raised Quarter Horses), and was breaking and training colts for him by the time I was eighteen. In my twenties, I worked for a pack station in the Sierra Nevada Mts and for a large cattle operation in northern California. This was followed by a period where I worked for some prominent cutting and reining horse trainers and hauled my horse, Gunner, all over California and several other western states competing at reining and cutting events. Eventually I began competing at team roping, and continued to train horses, both for myself and others.

Right around the time I turned thirty I decided I was ready for a slightly less strenuous career. Since I had always been a big fan of Dick Francis (like so many others), I decided to try my hand at turning my background with western horses into mysteries, much as he had used his past as a steeple chasing jockey to create his own books.

So for the next few years I wrote. I continued to train horses for myself and competed at team roping, but my focus began to be on writing about it. I wrote longhand, in a spiral bound notebook, and I can remember writing away in the front seat of my pickup while I waited for my name to be called to compete at various ropings. I wrote in the barnyard while I watched my hosed-off horses dry in the sun. I wrote three book length manuscripts over a three year period before I was able to get an agent to represent me, and when she did agree to take me on she demanded numerous rewrites-this process lasting another year (she was a former editor and it showed). Once she was satisfied with the book, it took her over another year to sell my first novel, Cutter, to St Martin's Press. So the path to publication wasn't exactly easy nor was it a fast track. Still I have very much enjoyed the process of writing about the many aspects of the western horse world that I've been involved with, and I feel grateful that my mysteries have continued to be published regularly ever since that first book hit the shelves.

Cutter came out in 1994 and describes the world of cutting horses. It was followed by Hoofprints, which revolves around reined cowhorses. Roughstock features team roping and endurance riding, and Roped deals with ranching and roping. Slickrock is set in the course of a pack trip in the Sierra Nevada Mts and Breakaway involves Gail in riding the trails of coastal California. Hayburner describes breaking a colt and Forged takes Gail and her horses on a pack trip along the beaches of Monterey Bay. Moonblind features a Thoroughbred lay-up farm on the cliffs above that same bay, and Chasing Cans, my tenth book, which is just out this month, centers on a legendary barrel racing trainer.

I'm frequently asked by readers who want to become published authors what my advice would be to one who is getting started. Obviously you have to be willing to persevere with your writing even when success doesn't happen immediately. (Or doesn't happen for years, which was my own case.) I think this goes without saying. I have also found it helpful to write about things I know intimately. Almost all the facets of the western horse world that I explore in my books are areas that I have participated in for years and years. (The exceptions to this are endurance riding and Thoroughbred lay-up farms, on which my knowledge is second-hand-thank you Craig and Ginny!)

Since I have had horses all my life (currently I own eleven) the veterinary calls and emergencies that Gail deals with are based on things that have actually happened to me and my horses, or to my friends. And the horses in the books are all based on horses I have known (and mostly loved). This helps the books come alive (at least for me; I hope for others).

The books are set in California, primarily on the coast near Monterey Bay, where both Gail and I live, and where my family has been running a ranch for four generations. Though I know some authors can write about places after brief trips to research them (and do a good job of it, too), I don't posess that skill. In order to write effectively about the weather, landscape, and "feeling" of a place, I have to know it intimately.

When I first began writing these mysteries, inspired by Dick Francis as I was, I used a male protagonist. However it wasn't until I re-wrote my third manuscript, changing the male veterinarian into a female version, that an agent finally accepted my work. I believe this was in part due to the particular timing; female protagonists were just becoming very popular in the mystery genre, with a great many of us riding in on the heels of Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. I have come to feel blessed by the chance that gave me a woman to write about; I found that my ability to give Gail life changes that I knew intimately (having been through them) contributed to my ability to keep her "alive" through many, many books (at least for me, again, I hope for readers, too). "Write what you know" has become my mantra.

One of the biggest thrills in my writing career has been to actually meet the man who was my inspiration-yes, I mean Dick Francis. Since our meeting we have had a regular correspondence for the last fourteen years. You can imagine how delighted I was when he read (and praised) my novels, but the the ultimate moment came when he asked to borrow some details of veterinary medicine that I used to further the plot in Slickrock. Of course I said yes. (!) "Borrow anything you like" (though I don't know if he really did). Praise from one's mentor is sweet indeed and I am never happier than when my books are likened to Dick Francis'. (See the comment on the back of Chasing Cans-I'm very touched by it.)

All in all its been a wonderful ride-both the books and the horses. I still ride my horses almost every day, and despite all the hours I've put in writing over the last twenty years (yes, its been twenty years-I started writing mysteries when I was thirty and I'm now fifty), it doesn't amount to half the hours I've spent on the back of a horse!

Happy trails, Laura and Gunner

PS-Gunner is twenty-eight this year, happily retired (still sound) and living in my sixty acre pasture.

Laura Crum
www.lauracrum.com

Heroes and Horses

by Kit Ehrman

The protagonist or hero of a story is one of the most important elements a fiction author must deal with, one that deserves a great deal of forethought and consideration.

When I set out to write my first mystery, AT RISK, on July 22, 1996 (yes, I actually remember the date) I already had the opening scene in mind. What I needed was a character to tell the story. A hero.



First off, I decided that my hero would be a guy, in part, because I like guys and, secondly, because much of the fiction that I’d been reading featured male protagonists. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and George Bagby, and later, I fell in love with Dick Francis’s equine novels. And my perception at the time, flawed as it may have been, was that guys had a lot more freedom, took more chances, and were more exciting than . . . well, me.

Then there was the fact that I wanted a lot of freedom writing this character. I didn’t want him to resemble me too closely because I suspected I might feel inhibited if I thought the reader was thinking: this is who the author is.

So, I took a chance, bucked the tradition of women writing female protagonists, and developed barn manager and amateur sleuth Steve Cline. Without realizing it, I bucked another tradition by writing a very young protagonist at a time when older sleuths were the norm. His youth (he’s 21 in AT RISK) was actually trickier than nailing the guy thing.

While I was working through the first drafts of AT RISK and the opening chapters of DEAD MAN’S TOUCH, I took two writing courses offered by Writers’ Digest magazine’s Novel Writing Workshop. Both times, I requested a male instructor and was lucky to be paired with Steven Havill and William G. Tapply. Havill writes a police procedural series set in New Mexico, featuring Undersheriff Bill Gastner, and Tapply’s series features Boston estate attorney Brady Coyne. Both men, along with my husband, were a tremendous help and quick to point out when I got it wrong!

So, who is Steve? To make him more complex and interesting and real for the reader, I gave him personal issues to deal with along with the story problem. He grew up in a wealthy but emotionally distant family with two older siblings. He attended a private school and spent many of his summers “at camp” because his parents were too busy to parent. Despite the excessive wealth, his relationship with them was damaging, and eventually Steve becomes estranged from them when he leaves college to work in the horse industry. Many of the choices he makes, including his penchant for risk-taking, are linked to his strained relationship with his father and a subconscious need to prove himself.

Steve has been so much fun to write. He’s young, reckless, flawed, but also principled. At times, he seems real.

Speaking about real, many of the horses I’ve known and loved, or have just worked with, have found themselves in the pages of my books. A troubled horse in AT RISK, Cut to the Chase, a.k.a. Chase, is modeled after a horse who used to be boarded at a hunter/jumper farm where I worked. The real Chase, whose official name escapes me, was an open jumper: a huge seventeen hand, coppery chestnut gelding with a lot of white on his legs. The barn crew used to affectionately call him “Jaws” because he loved to nip his handlers. What fascinated me about the real Chase was the fact that, though ornery when handled from the ground, he was a sweetheart under saddle. He was a gorgeous, fluid mover and a truly gifted jumper.

What has surprised me most about my fictional horses is the way they magically come to life, seemingly on their own. One of my favorites is Russian Roulette. He’s a character in DEAD MAN’S TOUCH and TRIPLE CROSS.



I didn’t intentionally model him after any horse from my past, but he came to life nonetheless. Here’s a brief excerpt from TRIPLE CROSS when Steve is getting ready to go talk to the police and wondering whether he'll be free to leave once he meets them:

I gathered my trash together, left it sitting on the tack trunk, and walked over to Ruskie’s stall. He poked his head over the stall guard before curling his neck around to nuzzle my waist. I hooked my arm across his neck and smoothed my hand down his face. Resting my forehead against his mane, I breathed deeply, inhaling the indescribable blended odors: his skin, his sleek chestnut coat, the sweet smell of his breath, all combined with the mix of straw and hay, and I was reminded of the generations of horses who had passed through this barn. Derby runners, most of them.

Ruskie was uncharacteristically still, and I wondered if he sensed the tension fizzing in my nerves and pressing against my skull like a bad headache.

I had no guarantee I’d be here tomorrow. None at all.

He lipped the thin belt keeper at my waist, then smoothed his muscular lips along my belt. Knowing that a nip was likely next on his agenda, I straightened.

I stopped at Storm’s stall and patted him, told him to be a good boy, and when I turned around, Jay said, “What? No hug for me?”

I grinned and told him to wish me luck.

-----------

Here are a couple photos of the actual Derby Barn at Churchill Downs that I took while researching TRIPLE CROSS:


This is the Derby Barn. Note the press. They are everywhere.





“The horse: friendship without envy, beauty without vanity, nobility without conceit, a willing partner, yet, no slave.” ~ Anon

Cheers,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com

A Chance Discovery

by Kit Ehrman

Welcome to Equestrian Ink, your place on the web for exploring what's new and exciting in the world of equestrian fiction. I'm thrilled and honored to be here with these talented writers and to be a part of this ground-breaking endeavor.

Actually, my journey in becoming a "horse person" and a writer happened because of a work of equestrian fiction.

I was twenty-three at the time, and working for the government, when I took a week off to stay at my parents' house while they were on vacation. My husband was out of town for a training seminar, and I was bored, so I looked around the house for something to read and found a Readers' Digest Condensed Book edition of Dick Francis's IN THE FRAME. The main character was an equine artist, and I got enough of a feel for the horse world to know that I wanted to read more of Francis's work, not to mention that fact that the man writes an excellent mystery, to say the least. Afterwards, I tracked down every title that Francis had written at that time and was hooked. Titles that I read soon after I read IN THE FRAME, and two of my favorites were: DEAD CERT and FOR KICKS. I fell in love with the fictional horse world he portrayed and decided I wanted to experience it for real.

I quit the government job, exaggerated my experience (none) to get a job working on a hunter/jumper show farm, and ended up working in the horse industry for twenty-five years. My first horse was a six-year-old Quarter horse Arabian cross. A big, fat, flea-bitten gray with black points and a black mane that stuck straight up after the previous owner had roached it. He reminded me of an ancient war horse from the Middle Ages, so I named him Stonehenge (barn name "Stoney). I've also had the privilege of owning several thoroughbreds who've retired from the track and an adorable Appendix Quarter horse mare named Flare:



Over the years, I've worked a variety of horse jobs. I worked briefly at the racetrack. I've worked as a barn manager, groom, vet tech, and I delivered foals on the night shift. That was my all-time favorite job. I've shown over fences, did some low level eventing, and eventually switched to dressage. Though I enjoyed riding, barn chores and caring for the horses interested me more.

I've always been a mystery fan, and when I decided to try my hand at writing, it was only natural that I would combine both loves: horses and mystery. There are currently four novels in my equine-oriented mystery series featuring barn manager and amateur sleuth Steve Cline. (Check out Steve's Myspace page at www.myspace.com/stephen_cline.)

The stories are traditional mysteries with a touch of romance, highly suspenseful, and fully entrenched in the horse world. The books have been well reviewed in The New York Times, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, etc., and have collected multiple awards. The latest release, TRIPLE CROSS, takes place in Louisville and on the backside of Churchill Downs during the Kentucky Derby.



I've been lucky. Lucky that a chance discovery of a work by the master, Dick Francis, came at a time in my life when I was young enough, and naïve enough, to drop one career for another, riskier one. And I've been lucky that I've met with such success now that I've switched careers again, by trading in a set of reins for a pen.

As any horse enthusiast knows, we horse lovers are constantly on the lookout for fiction set in the horse world. Here at Equestrian Ink, I'm looking forward to discovering new authors, learning about equine-related fiction that I've somehow overlooked, and discussing books that I've read and loved. Plus, we're going to have some exciting guests, too. Bookmark us and drop by often.

Cheers,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com