Sixteen Horses

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This book won't be for everyone, it is hard, gritty and traumatic. The characters are almost predictable, the tired, gruff cop, the assistance from a wary outsider, the locals in their insular lives, but Greg Buchanan twists and spins their lives, their fears, their actions in an unpredictable fashion. All set in a cold seaside town.

In the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect. And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightening and insidious mysteries – no matter the cost. The narrative was very fragmented and at times became hard to follow. It was quite a disjointed reading experience which made it less enjoyable. Although many of the characters weren't 'what they seemed' they weren't fleshed out enough for me to become invested in.The town of Iimarsh England is well described and you feel the hopelessness in the book; how everything is dying and people moving away and places just empty. The setting is perfect for the dark story. The writing technique used by the author is unique. There’s no gradual unfolding of the events in the story, it is more or less like watching a film with one scene cutting to the next with no rhyme or reason. In here, it works in obscuring the story and literally muddles the already muddy water. However, it may seem problematic for those readers who take frequent breaks in between their reading, in which case this jumping from one scene to the next, sometimes, leaving no clues to the narrator of the POV we are reading, may break the flow in the story and make it feel disjointed. That also could be the primary reason why the story and its characters never leave a mark but the town definitely does. Neither Cooper nor Alec induces any warm feeling and made it difficult to connect to them as a reader. Dat de hele wereld lyrisch is over het boek en er gevochten is over de rechten om het te verfilmen, begrijp ik niet. Het was mij te duister, onduidelijk en onbevredigend. Ik sloeg het boek dicht en wist niet zo goed wat ik ervan moest vinden. En eigenlijk weet ik dat nu nog niet.

I have trained racehorses and practised as a vet for many years, and my motivation for working in this sport – like everyone in the industry – is my deep respect for thoroughbred horses. I fully understand why there is a lot of anger directed towards the protesters today by my industry colleagues and lovers of the sport. After sixteen horse heads are discovered buried on a remote farm, forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen is drawn into a frightening mystery…

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Alec Nichols is een zwaar depressieve rechercheur. Hij gaat gebukt onder zo veel verdriet dat hij vaak totaal niet functioneert. Hij woont al een aantal jaar in het dorp, maar kent nog steeds maar weinig mensen. Cooper Allen is al een aantal jaar forensisch dierenarts. Ze probeert door haar integere onderzoek en resultaten de zaak tot een goed einde te brengen. Waar zij de verbinding met haar omgeving probeert te maken, jaagt Alec mensen tegen zich in het harnas. Deze twee tegenpolen ontwikkelen een vreemd soort relatie waarbij ze de zaak op verschillende manieren benaderen. The hook was clever and there were some smart twists along the way. However, the plot is incredibly disjointed. It jumps around, often rambling, but without real purpose or coming together at the end. Much of the prose is overwrought - this isn’t crime literature - this is poorly edited crime fiction. I also have little positive to say about the characters. There wasn’t one that made a real impression on me. It feels like this book takes place in an alternative universe. A near post apocalyptic feel to it. The book is so incredibly dark, a little like the constant chiming of a bell at a funeral. The thing is, this was hugely enjoyable to read. I had read this book incredibly fast as it was just so good. It's a thriller about a dying town and then something even more horrible happens that just makes things worse. Someone had stole and killed sixteen horses, leaving the heads & tails in a farmer's muddy field. But that is actually just the beginning of the problems, because an unknown killer is out there: someone really twisted and demented. But who? Why? The horses had been stolen from numerous owners. The story also includes many cryptic notes that the Detective has to try and figure out. And why sixteen? Why sixteen horses and not only one or two? Why horses? The story is not really fast paced but a slow burn at a steady pace. And it does rise to a climax at the end too. There were also a few unexpected developments in the plot as well.

No one can accept fatalities as a certainty at any race and no one, least of all anyone in racing, wants to see what we witnessed in Saturday’s National.” Animal Rising claim their actions aimed to prevent deaths And I did learn one new thing about horses in here oddly enough, about the groove in their teeth. It can be used to age a horse. And talking about the horses now it is sad that the only time that poor Rebecca was happy (and actually looked happy to others) was the day of her one & only riding lesson. That just shows people need horses. They need horse therapy as it can truly help heal people. And people also need to learn to stand up for themselves. A lot of the stuff in the story is about the need to getting others to like you, about fitting in. Well working with horses can give you self confidence (partly because they are such large animals) so it is a real shame that the horses were killed instead of helping these damaged people who were lonely. I don't mean the killer but the others who felt like outcasts (and oddly enough that includes the Detective). Cooper verifies that the heads are of sixteen horses. The animals belong to various residents of Ilmarsh, and most were stabled at Elton’s Riding Academy and Livery. Several others were independents, like Michael Stafford’s Annie, who pulled a carriage at the local seaside arcade. All the animals had been sedated at the request of their owners because of the Guy Fawkes celebration and fireworks.Unlike anything else you’ll read this year, Sixteen Horses is a deeply disconcerting ride. Irresistible I wanted to share the first blogger review - it completely captures the gothic tone I was aiming for with this novel and it was The instigation of the action in Sixteen Horses is the grizzly discovery of sixteen horses heads found half buried, each with one eye staring at the sky, together with a knot of tails on a farm outside of the coastal British town of Ilmarsh. The act had taken place on Guy Fawkes Night when the horses from various places around town had been sedated so as not to be spooked by the fireworks and everyone in town was at the pyre. Local detective Alex Nicholls, a man with deep secrets who himself is barely holding things together, is out of his depth and a forensic vet, Cooper Allen, is called in to help with the investigation. But just as it seems they are getting somewhere the story and the narrative takes a wild swerve, the town put in quarantine following the long term consequences of the World War 2 testing of anthrax spores and Alec’s eighteen year old son goes missing. Cooper is asked to stay on to investigate. It is rare that I plummet to the depths of a 2 star review but I struggled to engage with Sixteen Horses on multiple fronts. To discuss with other players and join a community of writers/story-enjoyers, request access to Greg's Discord here: https://forms.gle/hsy3SdS5sTYh6pkE6