Cozy Mysteries With Horses

Horse people can usually tell within a page whether a writer has actually been in a barn. Michele Scott grew up riding in the foothills of San Diego county and has spent her working life in the equestrian industry. Both of her horse series are written from inside that world, which is why the tack, the politics and the money in them read the way they do.

There are two series, and they are not the same book. The Michaela Bancroft Mysteries are adult cozy mysteries set among show barns, sale horses and the people who will do anything to win. The Vivienne Taylor Mysteries are young adult, set at an elite riding academy. Start with whichever world sounds more like yours.

Michaela Bancroft is a thirty-two-year-old horse trainer in Southern California. She is in the middle of an ugly divorce and close to losing her ranch to creditors when her uncle Lou is found murdered in a stable stall. Saddled with Trouble is book one. Death Reins In follows a racetrack veterinarian who goes missing. In Tacked to Death a polo rider is clubbed to death with a polo mallet and the suspicion lands on Michaela.

Vivienne Taylor is seventeen, the scholarship rider at Fairmont Riding Academy, surrounded by elite horses and old money. She also has something she does not advertise: she can feel what a horse feels. Silent Harmony is book one, followed by Dark Harmony and Perfect Harmony.

If you want a murder, an amateur sleuth and a romance thread running underneath, start with Saddled with Trouble. If you want the academy, the competition and a touch of the uncanny, start with Silent Harmony.