The Cryptic Caper by Doug Olsen

For those who like a quick, easy read, the Cryptic Caper may be of interest.  I downloaded it for free on Kindle recently under a search of the word horse.  This is a short horse racing mystery.  Now when it comes to horse racing mysteries, I typically think of Dick Francis.  Though Bev Pettersen does a great job of mixing horse racing romances with mystery.  The Cryptic Caper is a short story that wraps things up nicely.

Although the story is based around horse racing and betting on races, it doesn’t really feature horses at all.  There is reference to the racetrack and horse’s names in the races but that’s about as far as the horse sections of the book go.

The book is an easy read that looks at the interactions between a writer who likes to solve mysteries, some bettors who make a living from racehorse odds and the bigwigs who have a lot of connections in town and a lot of money to bet on sure things.

Horse races are being thrown and it’s interesting to read about the way the message is presented to particular bettors.  The cryptic way the message is displayed was not one I had read about.

Doug Olsen’s bio indicates that he writes short stories that can be read and neatly wrapped up within half an hour.  The Cryptic Caper fits into that description nicely.  I would have loved to see more reference to the horse industry as it only appears on a superficial level.  That said, there was nothing incorrect or inconsistent about the horse aspects, which was nice to read.

Author – Doug Olsen
Fiction – mystery, stort story
In my library – as a kindle