From Publishers Weekly
Black Sgt. Winston Hope is the most competent police officer on the Caribbean island of Antigua. His brother-in-law, Ernest Wilson, is a petty hotel thief who perpetrates too fortuitous a heist and is later murdered, Mafia-style, in New York City. Suspecting a drug connection, Antiguan authorities assign Hope to unravel the crime. Hope stumbles on the truth that neither drugs nor Mafia colluded in Wilson's death: Wilson had lifted the attache case of a master terrorist whose IRA cohorts plan to assassinate Queen Elizabeth on Derby Day at Epsom Downs. The terrorists have already insinuated themselves in the paddocks among the retinue of trainers who attend Noble Lord, the Derby favorite. In his first novel, Lauder dispenses intriguing information about both steeplechase racing and terrorist practices, but the coincidences that keep the narrative moving rattle as noisily as hail on a tin roof.
Black Sgt. Winston Hope is the most competent police officer on the Caribbean island of Antigua. His brother-in-law, Ernest Wilson, is a petty hotel thief who perpetrates too fortuitous a heist and is later murdered, Mafia-style, in New York City. Suspecting a drug connection, Antiguan authorities assign Hope to unravel the crime. Hope stumbles on the truth that neither drugs nor Mafia colluded in Wilson's death: Wilson had lifted the attache case of a master terrorist whose IRA cohorts plan to assassinate Queen Elizabeth on Derby Day at Epsom Downs. The terrorists have already insinuated themselves in the paddocks among the retinue of trainers who attend Noble Lord, the Derby favorite. In his first novel, Lauder dispenses intriguing information about both steeplechase racing and terrorist practices, but the coincidences that keep the narrative moving rattle as noisily as hail on a tin roof.
Sergeant Hope of the Antigua police is sent to New York, unofficially, to investigate the death of his brother-in-law, a petty jewel thief who broke into some hotel rooms in Antigua and then fled the country. His boss believes the thief was involved in drug smuggling and wants nothing more than to show his superiors that something - anything - is being done about the drug problem. But Sgt Hope gets a glimpse of a terrorist plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, except he can't get his boss to listen to him. Meanwhile in England, a second-rate horse trainer is not questioning the luck that brought him a billionaire Arab who sends him the most expensive racehorse in the world...as long as he employs a certain stablehand. This was written in 1986, and the terrorists are Irish. It's a thriller, not a mystery; you know who the bad guys are (frankly I expected more conspiracy elements, which didn't show up) and it's just a question of racing to the finish wire. I looked for other titles by Lauder and turned up that it is a pseudonym for Peter Cunningham, with a number of other books under that name. This one is nice enough but not really memorable...it's been on my shelves for years now and I didn't remember anything except the horse. I must have bought it because of the racing angle.
