Roe, Graeme

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Roe, Graeme

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Writer, business owner, jockey, and entrepreneur. Owner and operator of a business communications company. Founder of an advertising agency; worked in marketing. Worked as a jockey and trainer in horse racing.

WRITINGS:

"JAY JESSOP" SERIES

A Touch of Vengeance, Roe Racing (Gloucestershire, England), 2004.

Odds on Death, Roe Racing (Gloucestershire, England), 2005.

Dangerous Outsider, Constable (London, England), 2007.

Too Close to Call, Robinson Publishing (London, England), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Graeme Roe is a novelist, business communications specialist, and an entrepreneur who once founded an advertising agency and is the owner of a writing and corporate communications company. Roe has also been a trainer and jockey in horse racing.

As a novelist, Roe is the author of four novels in the "Jay Jessop" racing thriller series, all of which revolve around mysteries and nefarious acts in the field of horse racing. Roe's first book, A Touch of Vengeance, introduces series regular Jason "Jay" Jessop, a former jockey who has become a horse trainer. In this story, four international powerbrokers face off in the high-money area of National Hunt racing in England and Ireland. The quartet—three very powerful men and one wealthy South African woman—nurse their longstanding toxic grudges against each other, but cooperate most effectively when it comes time to exert their influence in the National Hunt races.

The second "Jay Jessop" novel is Odds on Death. In Dangerous Outsider, the third "Jay Jessop" book, an "upstart horse-training operation turns out to be the front for international intrigue," reported a Kirkus Reviews critic. Trouble starts for Jay and his heiress wife Eva when two of the most naturally gifted and promising horses they'd been training are inexplicably taken from their stable, Country View, and transferred to their chief rival, Quentin O'Connor. The horses, it turns out, were purchased for inexplicably large sums of money, well beyond their actual value, by an unknown person who then gave the animals to O'Connor. Later, the defection of talented jockey Patti Jenkins also presents a stunning surprise for Jay and his wife. Jay's troubles increase when an attempt is made to frame him for illegal horse doping. Thereafter, the problems are magnified by suspicious fires, poisoned horses, and shootings. Jay must step away from the stables and figure out who is behind these terrible deeds before more trouble occurs or, worse yet, people start dying. The novel features "impressive, knowledgeable descriptions of race courses and procedures," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Roe's "tightly plotted whodunit keeps us intensely curious, if profoundly in the dark, to the very last chapter," commented Dennis Dodge in a Booklist review.

Too Close to Call, the fourth "Jay Jessop" novel, features a pair of devious and crooked casino owners who are plotting to acquire several British racehorses to include in their scam involving a supercasino. No one, not even Jay Jessop, will be allowed to stop them. Meanwhile Jay finds himself fielding a swarm of new troubles, from unintended jealousy at home (his wife, Eva, disapproves of Jay's alluring new assistant trainer) to the unwelcome advances of a porn star, to worrisome unpredictable and erratic behavior from a major financial backer. Even more disconcerting for Jay, he believes that there may be a spy from his major rival at work in his stables. When a group of unpleasant thugs arrive to make things worse, Jay turns to some heavy-duty gang contacts of his own.