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In Colt Blood

Name: In Colt Blood
Author: Jody Jaffe
ISBN: 9780449000847

by Jody Jaffe

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Overview

"She's pure gold," raves The Philadelphia Inquirer about redheaded Carolina journalist and inspired snoop Natalie Gold—"spunky, quirky, and lots of fun." Now Nattie's mixing it up with a crazy passel of filthy rich Southerners, a horse-whispering beauty, and one grisly murder . . . In Colt Blood.

When Nattie's boss at the Charlotte Commercial Appeal orders her to find a local horse whisperer to interview, she knows just the person: yellow-haired New Age belle Sarah Jane Lowell, one of the gifted few who claims to have a psychic connection to horses. She not only talks to them, she hears what they answer. Unfortunately, before Nattie can set up a meeting, Sarah Jane vanishes along with her newfound friend: Nattie's eccentric father.

Disturbingly, their sudden disappearance coincides with the brutal murder of Fuzzy McMahon, whose bludgeoned body was found at the very stable where Nattie was supposed to meet Sarah Jane. True, Fuzzy was less than popular, but who would stoop to such a bloody act of violence? Although suspicion has fallen on dark-horse candidate Sarah Jane, Nattie's splitting her money between two other front-runners: blacksmith Bobby McMahon, Fuzzy's redneck of a husband, and his tiresome cousin, Jason Sukon, who can only gain by her death—specifically millions of dollars.

A sophisticated tale of reckless romance and irretrievable violence, In Cold Blood goes beyond murder to explore the mysteries of fear, love, lust, and hate. And as always, when it comes to the manners and morals of the New South, mystery author Jody Jaffe gets it right every time.

About the Author, Jody Jaffe

Jody Jaffe has long experience in both the worlds of journalism and horse shows. For the past twenty-four years she has been riding and showing hunters, and she spent ten years as a feature writer for The Charlotte Observer. Her first novel, Horse of a Different Killer, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery. She is also the author of Chestnut Mare, Beware.

She makes her home in Washington, D.C.

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Editorials

Kirkus Reviews

If horses could talk, what would they say? ("I don't like going to horse showsþ? þI feel like I'm always being judged"?) Because her editor's have read The Horse Whisperer, Natalie Gold, fashion reporter for the Charlotte Commercial Appeal, needs to interview a horse psychic like Sarah Jane Lowellþwhich is why she's on hand for the discovery of the mortal remains of Sarah Jane's client, baleful Family Value Stores heiress Fuzzy McMahon, as it's being returned to the soil via a pile of manure. Since Sarah Jane's known to have had very unprofessional relations with Fuzzy's philandering widower, it's not surprising that she hightails it out of the McMahon spread, but why does she have to take Nattie's manic-depressive father with her? With philosophical resignation, Nattie and Tony Odom, her buddy in the sheriff's department, turn their attention to the other suspects, whom Fuzzy's sunny disposition has made nearly coextensive with the Charlotte telephone directory. Aside from lascivious Bobby McMahon, thereþs a raft of New Age fakirs and fakers; the scheming parents of young Ashlee McMahon's girlfriends-turned-rivals in the show ring; and, for good measure, hate-spouting preacher Rowe Quarrels, who may fancy little boys—all of them dished in Nattie's inimitably bratty prose. Even more than in Nattie's first two cases (Chestnut Mare, Beware, 1996, etc.), the distinctive milieu here, complete with reported equine dialogue, overshadows the conventional mystery. It's probably just as well, as Mr. Ed would say.