Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [116]
“You hold on to him,” Violet tells me.
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the man or the horse, but I’ll try to do right by both.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAGGIE ESTEP is the author of Diary of an Emotional Idiot and Soft Maniacs. Her work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including the Village Voice, the New York Press, and Nerve.com. She is currently working on Flame Thrower, the next Ruby Murphy mystery and hanging out at racetracks, cheering on long shots. She lives in New York City.
ALSO BY MAGGIE ESTEP
Staying out of trouble is a long shot when Ruby Murphy gets involved in horse racing’s seamy underbelly—a dangerous world where nothing is as it appears and people and thoroughbreds seem to have remarkably limited life spans.
“There is about Maggie Estep’s work a directness, a clear determination—a drive to cut through, to break through, to claw through—that is impressive.”
—A. M. HOMES, author of In a Country of Mothers
THREE RIVERS PRESS · NEW YORK
Wherever books are sold · www.crownpublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of this work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Maggie Estep
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.
Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Estep, Maggie.
Gargantuan: a Ruby Murphy mystery/Maggie Estep.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Women detectives—New York (state)—New York—Fiction. 2. Coney
Island (New York, NY.)—Fiction. 3. Jockeys—Crimes against—Fiction.
4. Museums—Employees—Fiction. 5. Horse racing—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.S754G37 2004
813′.54—dc22
2004001802
eISBN: 978-0-307-52576-5
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Other Books By This Author
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 - The Jockey
Chapter 2 - Man on Fire
Chapter 3 - Sherpa Guide
Chapter 4 - Cool My Head Off
Chapter 5 - After Near Death
Chapter 6 - Innocent Beasts
Chapter 7 - Masked Rider
Chapter 8 - Velocity
Chapter 9 - Women’s Studies
Chapter 10 - The Blind Eye
Chapter 11 - Counting Horses
Chapter 12 - Savage in the Heart
Chapter 13 - Darwin’s Hiccup
Chapter 14 - In the Hole
Chapter 15 - Symptoms
Chapter 16 - She Run Good
Chapter 17 - The Comfort of Strangers
Chapter 18 - Ten Kinds of Trouble
Chapter 19 - Hush
Chapter 20 - The Sadness of Humans
Chapter 21 - Radiance
Chapter 22 - When the World Stops Spinning
Chapter 23 - Vicious
Chapter 24 - Half Naked
Chapter 25 - Runaway
Chapter 26 - The Layout of Eternity
Chapter 27 - Bad Lady
Chapter 28 - The Girl
Chapter 29 - Last Ride
Chapter 30 - At Sixes and Sevens
Chapter 31 - Caught
Chapter 32 - If Wishes Were Horses
Chapter 33 - Dead by Yesterday
Chapter 34 - Compelling Thunder
Chapter 35 - Crawling
Chapter 36 - Long Shot
Chapter 37 - Ride
Chapter 38 - Falling
Chapter 39 - Ether
Chapter 40 - Grace
About the Author
Also by Maggie Estep
Copyright