Tuesday, March 13, 2012

There Will Be Bloodstock

It’s Cheltenham week, of course, so who else - rhetorical question alert - would we be talking about today other than Ireland’s finest exponent of the horse-racing thriller, Brian O’Connor. Brian’s debut novel, BLOODLINE, was a very fine thriller set in the world of Irish sport of kings, a setting O’Connor has stuck with for his follow-up offering. THREATEN TO WIN (Poolbeg) was published last month, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:
Lorcan Donovan is an ex-amateur rider in charge of the bloodstock empire of the billionaire American, Jake Weinberger. But behind the glamour of big-money horse deals and the world’s great races, all is not as it seems. Jockey Mike Clancy is in the pocket of a ruthless Irish gangster and is stopping Weinberger’s great Derby hope from winning. With millions gambled on the result, Donovan becomes a pawn in a vicious game of blackmail, kidnapping and corruption. The race to the finish line becomes a simple race to survive and the only one he can trust is himself.
  Brian O’Connor, incidentally, is a racing correspondent with the Irish Times, so it’s fair to say that he knows of what he speaks. Mind you, if he was that clued-in, he’d be rich as Croesus from betting on the nags, and wouldn’t need to write about them. Wouldn’t he?
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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.