Christina Lynch departs from historical fiction themed on love and espionage (Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure, The Italian Party) and trots out an inventively clever comic mystery, Pony Confidential.
A dual storyline threads the narrative that
starts when Californian, Penny Marcus, an unassuming third-grade teacher, is
arrested. Penny is charged for a murder committed 25-years before, when she was
12-years-old and living in New York. Stunned, Penny is considered a “wanted
fugitive.” She’s separated from her estranged husband and mentally ill daughter
and extradited to her old hometown.
Decades before, Penny’s sensitive, loyal riding
pony--who accompanied her on the day of the murder--incurred a “primal wound”
when he was sold. Cast adrift from home to home, the willful, mindful pony
suffered from simmering resentment: “You make us believe we’re beloved family
members (I’m looking at you, Penny!) and then you put a dollar sign on our
heads and send us off with anyone who coughs up the cash.” Now aging, cynical,
and fed up with his lot in life, the jaded pony escapes his current owner. He
sets off on a cross-country adventure, enlisting the help of other whimsical,
talking animals to find and exact revenge on Penny. En route, however, new
details emerge into the cold case that put Penny behind bars.
Lynch wrangles up a searingly fun, imaginative
story that shines with plausible, madcap plotting and keen, edgy observations
about the nature of people and animal welfare.
Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch
Berkley, $28.00 hardcover, 9780593640364, 384 pages
Publication Date: November 5, 2024
To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE
NOTE: This review is a reprint and is
being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this
review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (November 29, 2024), link HERE
