High Stakes: A Jack Doyle Mystery

Jack Doyle has a knack for ferreting out dangerous situations, as shown in McEvoy’s appealing fifth mystery featuring the Chicago-based ex-boxer and horse racing enthusiast (after 2012’s Photo Finish). Retired race horses are often donated to vet schools for research. When someone starts killing the animals to keep them from being exploited, two FBI agents ask Doyle to use his racing contacts to seek leads. That chore doesn’t keep Doyle from jetting to Dublin, Ireland, to see jockey Mickey Sheehan win a major award. In Dublin, Sheila Hanratty asks him to help her bookmaker husband, Niall, who’s had several suspicious accidents recently. Doyle also tangles with a wealthy social media entrepreneur who’s determined to force an elderly couple to sell him their prized horse. On top of all that, Harvey Rexroth, a crook Doyle help put in prison, is arranging to have him killed. McEvoy deftly manages his busy plot while liberally spicing it with intriguing racing stories. (Dec.)