Satan's Pony: A Mystery (Dr. Jo Banks) [Hardcover]

Robin Hathaway (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dr. Jo Banks | Publication Date: September 9, 2004

Hathaway's likeable young doctor, Jo Banks, is solidly ensconced as "house doctor" to a group of motels in the New Jersey countryside. Then one day the motel where Jo is living and where she has her office is suddenly over run by a loud group of motorcyclists. When one of the riders is murdered, suspicion falls on Dr. Jo's landlord's son, who turned up after having been presumed either to have permanently gone AWOL or to be lost in battle in Vietnam. Trying to help her friends, and prove that the man is innocent, Jo takes on a lot more than she may be able to handle.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Hathaway's worthy follow-up to Scarecrow (2003), motorcycle aficionado Dr. Jo Banks finds herself trying to exonerate a childhood friend accused of murder. Self-exiled from New York City because of a misdiagnosis that ended tragically, Jo runs a peaceful health clinic from a motel in rural New Jersey. A confrontation-hungry gang of bikers, "Satan's Apostles," rolls in one evening sneering at Jo's non-Harley "rice-burner." When Jo recognizes the leader, Pi, as a neighborhood geek who was once smitten with her, she realizes he's not the usual biker type—after all, he's a mathematician and MIT dropout. An impromptu bash in the motel's parking lot leads to a scuffle leaving one "apostle" dead, apparently at Pi's hands. While Pi goes on the lam on his Harley, Jo searches for the real killer. To complicate matters, Jo's boyfriend is witness to several easily misunderstood clinches that put their comfortable relationship at risk. Hathaway is best at creating likable characters and evoking place; the plot suffers from inconsistent pacing and a less-than-fleshed-out mystery. Despite the biker milieu, this is one for cozy fans, not readers of Barbara Seranella's gritty Munch Mancini novels.
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About the Author

Robin Hathaway lives in New York City. Her first novel, The Doctor Digs a Grave won the SMP/Malice Domestic Award for Best First Traditional Mystery in 1997 and the 1998 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (September 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312333226
• ISBN-13: 978-0312333225
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,666,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

BIO: Robin Hathaway

Robin Hathaway began writing at fifty and collected rejection slips until she was sixty, when her novel THE DOCTOR DIGS A GRAVE won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic prize, and later an Agatha Award. She now has two series both featuring doctor sleuths. Dr. Andrew Fenimore is a Philadelphia cardiologist who practices solo and still makes house calls. Jo Banks is a young woman doctor who provides healthcare to motel residents and makes her motel calls on a motorcycle. SLEIGHT OF HAND, her most recent in this series, won the 2009 David Award. Robin is not a doctor, but her husband is a cardiologist and she uses him shamelessly as her #1 medical resource. Right now Robin is taking a break from her two series to work on a spy novel set at Cape May during WWII. www.RobinHathaway.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars great amateur sleuth, September 29, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Satan's Pony: A Mystery (Dr. Jo Banks) (Hardcover)

After a misdiagnosis caused the death of a young girl, Dr. Jo Banks quit her lucrative medical practice and tried to outrun her emotional pain. She fled to Bayfield, New Jersey to become the doctor on call to various models in the area. She lives in a suite at the Oakview Motor Lodge and uses a cabin to see private patients.

The tranquility ends when the rowdy noisy Satan's Apostle motorcycle gang arrives to stay at the motel. Her first reaction is that the boisterous group consist of criminals and quickly realizes that as a teenager she knew the club leader Pi, an MIT drop-out. She soon realizes these are individualists and even likes a few of them. When a biker dies from arsenic poising, the police suspect Pi killed him. Jo hides him while she quietly snoops for the real culprit.

Robin Hathaway her written a great amateur sleuth mystery that gives readers an astute glimpse into the workings of a biker gang, who are a factoid reflection of society as a whole. The protagonist is a good judge of a person's character and is not afraid to follow her hunches although that could get her in trouble with the law. SATAN'S PONY is heavenly reading.

Harriet Klausner