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Book Review: by Lang Reid

The Inheritance

This is the fifth book from Jenny Pitman, a lady who was once known in the UK as the First Lady of Racing, having trained various horses into Grand National winners. This is her fifth book with an equine background, so she may also be the First Lady of Horse Fiction.
The Inheritance (ISBN 0-330-43424-1, Pan Books 2006) is released in paperback format, with the usual poor quality paper stock that seems to be the norm these days. A couple of good reads and the letters will fall off the pages, I am sure.
However, the book is set in horse training stables, with the principal character being a doggedly straightforward widowed lady by the name of Jan Hardy. With author Jenny Pitman also being a lady from the stables, the background information and the subtle nuances would be authentic.
Jan introduces a whole host of similarly ‘horsey’ characters, including a pathetic person called Eddie to whom she is engaged to be married, but he is quickly thrown out of the plot after his father is embroiled in some shady dealings. After all, Jan is cleaner than clean in a game which is known to have its grubby underbelly (or is that withers?).
From there one is introduced to other similarly horsey families, including crusty old British colonels who seem to be totally involved in all the horse training in the village, and the enmity between the two women in the competing stables.
By this stage in the book, I felt like treading carefully, in case I stepped in horse poo, or it fell out as I turned the pages. When the two women have a slanging match on the training course using such vile language as “sodding” and jolly old Jan smacks her rival in the mouth, it was degenerating into a typical Mills and Boon production.
From there a whole gamut of characters are introduced, each either more melodramatic or unbelievable than the next, including a Cherokee Indian called Montana (or Daytona or anything suitable Cherokee) who was obviously poisoning his horses with arsenic, though it took the doughty Jan about another 200 pages to twig to this fact. About 200 pages after the reader as well.
The family ins and outs are also exposed, including questions of legitimacy (or rather its reverse). Does her father know? Does her brother know? What does the 73 year old doctor know? Why did the colonel leave the farm to her brother? And unfortunately Mum dies before the real answers hit the table.
If this is not enough, the reader is treated to descriptions of horse races and how the jockey saves the day, only to have the horse disqualified later. Who doped Moonstone Magic? Shock! Horror! And after Jan had curtseyed to the Queen Mother as the winning trainer.
The book ends with our Jan saying to her faithful friend Michael, who undoubtedly she will marry in the next book, saying “I will be there for you, I promise.” There is only one other promise. Mine. I won’t be there.
If you eat from a feed bag, you’ll like it.

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