Customer Reviews

The Significant Seven (Jack Doyle Mysteries)

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The Significant Seven provides a fine Jack Doyle mystery and is set in 2002, when seven friends get together for horse racing - and hit the jackpot. When their leader convinces them to use some of their largess to buy race horses - where they get lucky again - trouble reaches years later into 2009, when members of the group are being murdered. A fine murder mystery evolves, recommended for any mystery collection!

"The Significant Seven" is John McEvoy's third racing mystery featuring his iconoclastic hero Jack Doyle. Doyle was introduced in McEvoy's first book "Blind Switch" and returned in "Close Call" where he helped save a struggling racetrack from extinction. Now he's back recruited to go undercover at the track to discover who is sponging horses to fix races.

An alternate plot follows the fortunes of seven college friends who hit a big Pick Six at Saratoga and used their lucre to enable a lifelong dream of racehorse ownership. The guys luck out again purchasing a horse they name The Badger Express who goes on to win over $3 million for their stable named "The Significant Seven." After an injury, The Badger Express is retired to stud and his owners sign an agreement that as each individual dies all the stallion's earnings as a sire will accrue to the syndicate . This sets up a scenario for suspicious deaths and Doyle becomes concerned as one after another the members die unexpectedly. Add in a couple of ex Navy-Seal Blackwater mercenary types and the plots thicken.

McEvoy cleverly combines plots and presents chapters fluctuating from past to present to heighten suspense. His expertise in all things racehorse stems from his long-time career as Midwest editor of the Daily Racing Form. For local readers, McEvoy includes some "inside jabs" -if you are involved in racing here, you may find a character named similarly to yourself which adds to the fun.

Every one of McEvoy's mysteries deals with true life situations--the killing of horses for insurance, race fixing, a track hard put to compete with the casinos, the lucky winners of big pots, the sponging of horses--an old time ploy recently revived, and more. Apart from the mystery aspect, McEvoy's book includes various vignettes that illustrate the nature of racetrack life and the characters that inhabit it; these insights frequently raise "The Significant Seven" above the level of thriller and into the realm of documentary.

While Dick Francis' notable mysteries focused on steeplechase racing in Europe, McEvoy's series is centered in the often gritty world of American flat racing. With Francis sadly deceased, McEvoy is a fine heir to the tradition of suspenseful, accurate and crisp writing that made the former's books best sellers. McEvoy deserves no less. Critics have already bestowed accolades on the series naming "Riders Down" (another racing mystery with a different protagonist) as winner of the 2008 Ben Franklin Award.


McEvoy who resides in Evanston, Illinois is also the author of five non-fiction books on thoroughbred racing including the award-winning "Great Horse Racing Mysteries."

In Chicago FBI agents Karen Engel and Damon Tirabassi ask Jack Doyle to help them work a cruel case of animal brutality to fix races at nearby Heartland Downs. They explain a new form of "sponging" has occurred in which a sponge placed in a horse's nasal passage to cut off half of the oxygen flow prevents an odds on favorite from running a solid race. Though they do not have his lower anatomy like they did when they used him before, Jack agrees to go undercover at Heartland.

Back in 2002, The Significant Seven, who met as students at the U of Wisconsin three decades earlier, won the Pick Six and use their winnings to buy racing horses. They have local success thanks to Badger Express. As Jack is undercover at Heartland, professional killers are assassinating the Significant Seven one at a time, but supplement their hit list with Jack whose investigation crosses over.

This is an exhilarating thriller as Jack works a cruelty to animals betting fix case, which leads him to a serial killer investigation. The story line is faster than Secretariat ran the Belmont as Jack finds himself in several Close Call predicaments. Mystery fans especially those who enjoy the Sport of Kings will appreciate this entry and the series as John McEvoy enhances the whodunit with horse racing tales.

Harriet Klausner

McEvoy is a demonstrated master at conjuring up some of the most interesting and amusing characters that ever populated a race track. But this outing is perhaps the best both in development of the multiple mysteries secreted throughout the pages AND based on the fascinating intricacies of the racing world that abound in every chapter. And special mention must go to the creatively clever ways in which the author chooses to dispose of characters.

Few books are both educational and thrilling. This one has both qualities. The reader can learn much about the horse racing racket (er, business) -- particularly, how races are fixed. And then the reader can get absorbed in a crackin' good mystery murder that ends with some real surprises. Highly recommended.