No one really notices that a certain horse race might have been fixed until Matt O’Connor, a Chicago-based columnist for a national racing newspaper, gets a call from Moe Kellman, a horse-owning acquaintance. Kellman’s question for Matt: Was the death of 92-year-old Bernard Glockner, Chicago’s oldest active bookie, suicide or murder? Glockner was Kellman’s late uncle, and Kellman, a man familiar with the Chicago mob, wants Matt to check it out. Matt quickly comes to believe that the fate of the bookmaker is tied to a series of races whose outcomes have been manipulated. His quest is aided by horse trainer Maggie Collins and Dave Zimmer, a professional gambler known as the Fount for his reputation as an encyclopedic source of information. Eventually, going as far afield as Las Vegas, they focus their sights on a brilliant sociopath. But why would this psycho have plotted a race-fixing scheme?

Spiced with lively language from the world of horse racing, Riders Down offers striking insights into that world and the possibilities of its corruption.

John McEvoy, former journalist for the Daily Racing Form, is the author of several nonfiction books on Thoroughbred horse racing and mystery novels set in the world of horse racing.