Author Christina Lynch departs from historical fiction with themes of love and espionage (Sally Brady's Italian Adventure; The Italian Party) to offer an inventively clever comic mystery, Pony Confidential.
The novel's dual storylines start when Californian Penny Marcus, an unassuming third grade teacher, is arrested. Penny is charged with a murder committed 25 years ago, when she was 12 years old and living in New York. Penny is stunned to be considered a "wanted fugitive" and extradited--away from her estranged husband and mentally ill daughter--to her old hometown.
Decades earlier, Penny's sensitive, loyal pony--who accompanied her on the day of the murder--suffered a "primal wound" when he was sold. Cast adrift from home to home, the willful pony suffered from simmering resentment: "You make us think we're beloved family members (I'm looking at you, Penny!) and then you put a dollar sign on our heads and send us off with anyone who coughs up the cash." Now aging, cynical, and fed up with his lot in life, the pony escapes his current owner. He sets off on a cross-country adventure, enlisting the help of other whimsical talking animals to find Penny and exact his revenge. En route, however, new details emerge about the cold case that put Penny behind bars.
Lynch wrangles a searingly fun, imaginative story that shines with plausible, madcap plotting and keen observations about human nature and animal welfare. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines