Gargantuan
A Ruby Murphy Mystery
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Maggie Estep’s critically praised heroine, Ruby Murphy, is back! Back in Coney Island with a bunch of endearing misfits, back at the racetrack ogling thoroughbreds, and back learning that, on the seamy side of the sport of kings, survival can be a long shot.
Ruby’s life is nothing if not complicated: she’s spending a lot of her time worrying about a jockey named Attila Johnson; a good-hearted Teamster with a bad back; a neighbor who is suspicious of anything that moves; one very fat cat who craves raw meat; a missing FBI agent; an underused piano; a few fine horses—and the sure knowledge that somehow, somewhere, there is a killer among them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Five separate narrators tell a sometimes muddled story involving race fixing, kidnapping and murder in Estep's second Ruby Murphy mystery (after 2003's Hex), set primarily at New York's Belmont Park. The most distinctive voice belongs to Ruby, a good-hearted gal who's taken up with a troubled jockey, Attila Johnson, after the unexpected departure of her FBI agent boyfriend, Ed Burke. Attila, torn between his attraction to Ruby and his love for his seriously disturbed wife, also has problems on the track where he's trying to overcome past mistakes. Ed Burke, Ruby's pal Big Sal and sad loner Ben Nester provide the other points-of-view, but their combined tale of tangled relationships, misunderstandings and jealousies isn't always easy to follow. Still, Estep's ability to take readers into the"backside" at the racetrack where the horses, jockeys, grooms and hotwalkers work make this an entertaining ride.
