The Puzzle of the Red Stallion

Hildegarde Withers, Book 6

By: Stuart Palmer

Narrated by: Julie McKay

Odds for murder...

Top model Violet Feverel should be a pretty picture riding the big red thoroughbred Siwash - but the front page photo on the tabloids is ugly as death. The police dub the tragedy an unfortunate accident. But Miss Hildegarde Withers, who stumbled across the girl's body on the Central Park bridle path, knows they are, unfortunately, wrong. Just plain horse sense tells her it was murder.

Who was the stranger in the too-small overcoat? What caused the spot of blood on the stallion's flank? What obvious clue at the scene of the crime was a red herring?

Joining forces with New York's grumpiest homicide inspector, Oscar Piper, Miss Withers is once again off and running after a killer. Then a day at the races ends with another dead body, and Miss Withers must play a deadly game of sleuth where the stakes are high and odds are growing higher.

©1935, 1936 Stuart Palmer (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Couldn't finish it.

Stereotypes. So many stereotypes, the worst being the "colored boy" -- a grown man, mind you -- who looks after the horses, written and spoken with an accent that's a throwback to the 1940s and '50s. Really insulting racist portrayal. I'm sure the author meant no harm, but one expects people to know better these days. This one really left a bad taste in my mouth.