Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan

 

Police inspector Alec Nichols has never in his career seen anything like this.  Sixteen horses have been killed, their heads buried with one eye open to the sun.  When he gets the call from one of the small farms that make up the rural community he lives in, he is shocked and appalled.  Who could have done such a thing?  What was their purpose?

The incident is so shocking and it makes the national news.  Local police decide to bring in a veterinary forensics expert, Cooper Allen.  Cooper is used to coming in to an area, helping the police solve a crime and then moving on.  She expects that this time will be the same.

But it is not the same.  Soon anyone who was anywhere near the farm starts to get sick and it is determined that there is an outbreak of anthrax.  More abuse cases are discovered, each cruel and seeming to be targeted at the police and local residents to cause as much fear and panic as possible.  Many are hospitalized and Alec is involved in a wreck, possibly from the effects of the contamination.  His teenage son is with him and cannot be found afterwards.  Cooper, who has developed feelings for Alec she never expected, stays on to try to solve the case without him.  Can the culprits be found before more people are affected?

This is a debut novel and if Buchanan writes more this well, he should have a long, successful career.  The feeling of the novel is dense, confusing as if a fog were swirling around all the characters.  These are not men and women who wear their hearts on their sleeves but rather quiet and purposeful people who wrest a living from an inhospitable land.  I listened to this novel and the narrator carried out the feeling of the book successfully.  This novel is recommended for mystery readers.