Gene Hawkins, investigator (of a special sort) by trade, was expert at arranging events so that they appeared accidental to all involved. Therefore when he himself became a witness to an “accident” his curiosity flared up bright, and he insisted on looking into what he regarded as a work of art. Since his boss had already been trying to jolt him out of a spell of severe depression he got every encouragement — along with the time-bomb help of his boss’s seventeen-year-old daughter Lynnie. A quarter of a million pounds worth of Derby-winning stallion had vanished into the Blue Grass of Kentucky... and a young man and a girl spent a dangerous afternoon in a punt on the River Thames. From these far-apart but related beginnings Gene Hawkins found himself trailing lost blood-horses over half America, until he in turn became the prey, and the sport changed sides with a vengeance