At Risk Book

A mystery about greed and revenge is at the center of At Risk by Kit Ehrman, but horses dominate the page. I don't know anything about horses other than the one time I rode a horse named Buck. I should have taken the hint from his name. Nevertheless, all the horse terminology and possible horse shenanigans (in and out of the business) kept me in the story despite some level of detail that I didn't fully understand. Make no mistake about it, this story starts out and ends violently. There is a fair amount of foul language and some mild sex scenes. It may not be everyone's cup of tea. If those elements bother you, just find another story. To me, it felt like an honest, if sometimes a bit raw, slice of life given the players involved.

While the protagonist, Steve Cline, acts responsibly beyond his 21 years, he chooses some terrible moments to act clueless. That reversal threw me a few times. Also, I felt the investigation was slightly off, looking for the microscopic evidence when real evidence sat in plain sight as big as a barn. I won't spoil it, because it was good read, but I wasn't super impressed with the professional investigators. It lead to some yelling at the electrons on my Kindle.

Some unanswered questions remain by the end of the story, but I assume a few of these are answered in other books in the series. Not sure why other reviewers (yes, I peeked) had issues with the love aspect of the story. For me, it heightened my interest and gave the story a bit more depth. I did have some difficultly though with character identification and how Steve managed with multiple episodes without sleep (ah, youth). This is a solid read. Horse fanciers might neigh at my rating, wanting it higher, but I think it is a solid "4".