Awards and Nominations:Best Book of Indiana, Book Sense notable Book, IPPY Award medalist, ForeWord magazine Book-of-the-Year medalist, Kentucky Literary Award and Great Lakes Book Award nomineeBooklist: "When Steve Cline accepts his horse trainer father's invitation to spend two weeks at Churchill Downs as one of two caregivers for Kentucky Derby contender Gallant Storm, he looks forward to an idyllic respite from his normal duties as a barn manager in Maryland. Cline would...

"Hidden away from the glittering stage of thoroughbred racing, with its flashing silks and gleaming horseflesh, is a place they call 'the backside.' In Dead Man's Touch . . . Ehrman refers to this behind-the-scenes area--where trainers, grooms, barn managers and stable hands minister around the clock to the needs of their high-strung charges--as 'a world unto itself.' Ehrman strikes a solid claim to this gritty territory with another heels-up thriller that takes up where Dick Francis left ...

ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year Bronze medalistIndependent Publishers' IPPY Award finalist"Cold Burn is a hot read. Grab it." ~ Rita Mae Brown"Ehrman's third Steve Cline mystery finds Cline working the night shift at a Virginia Thoroughbred farm in foaling season, and the detailed, apparently accurate account of what normally goes on there is among the book's chief attractions. Another is Cline's secret attempt to find out what was behind the baffling disappearanc...

This stirring first mystery is set in Maryland’s rich horse country where Steve Cline seems, at twenty-one, much too young to be in charge of a major stable. Seasoned by summers on a dude ranch, his skills and stamina are sorely tested when he’s hijacked early one morning along with some of the stable’s horses. His escape turns him into a killer’s target in an environment where a complex scheme develops and everyone, no matter how innocent, courts risks.REVIEWS “It's amazing what h...

What do you do when everything you’ve held to be true, when your entire life, in fact, turns out to be a lie? When 22-year-old Steve Cline learns that he’s illegitimate, and his real father is a race- horse trainer, he heads to the Maryland track. Steve’s father recruits him to work undercover in an effort to discover who’s been doping his most promising horses, and he quickly gets caught up in the unique lifestyle inherent to the backside. But it is not a life without peril because some m...

When Bruce Claremont quit his job working on a thoroughbred breeding farm and vanished, his sister Corey asks barn manager Steve Cline for help. So Steve slips into Bruce’s world, and the more he learns, the more he suspects that Corey may never see her brother again. Because all is not as it seems in this pastoral setting where secrets and jealousies and obsessions are the norm, and the present seems to be repeating its fiery past. If Steve’s not very careful, he just might get burned . ....

Although 23-year-old barn manager Steve Cline doesn't expect to stray far from the horse world, he has enrolled in a private investigations course and is working on the final project. But when his father, racehorse trainer Chris Kessler, invites him to Louisville on a two-week, all-expense-paid vacation that will culminate with the running of the Kentucky Derby, how can he refuse? Except, it isn't really a vaction. Kessler has a Derby runner and needs a reliable fill-in when one of his emp...

"It's amazing what horses can do for a mystery. Kit Ehrman's debut novel, At Risk, reeks of authenticity, and the hunters and jumpers that are boarded at this no-frills garage have personality to burn. When seven of these horses are stolen in the dead of night, Stephen Cline, the 21-year-old barn manager . . . in the honored tradition of a Dick Francis hero, vows to track down the thieves . . ." ~Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times"Both horse lovers and crime fans who've never stepp...

No one really notices that a certain horse race might have been fixed until Matt O’Connor, a Chicago-based columnist for a national racing newspaper, gets a call from Moe Kellman, a horse-owning acquaintance. Kellman’s question for Matt: Was the death of ninety-two-year-old Bernard Glockner, Chicago’s oldest active bookie, suicide or murder? Glockner was Kellman’s late uncle, and Kellman, a man familiar with the Chicago mob, wants Matt to check it out. Matt quickly comes to believe that th...

Jack Doyle, ex–amateur boxer and failed advertising account executive, returns to the world of thoroughbred horse racing when he is hired as publicity director for Monee Park, a struggling suburban Chicago track owned by heiress Celia McCann.McCann is determined to maintain the business, which was inherited from a beloved uncle. She finds various exploits to keep the business afloat while awaiting passage of a law allowing the introduction of lucrative video slot machines at Monee ...

Duncan Claymore could have it all. He's one of the country's up and coming young jockeys and this season his sights are set on getting right to the top. He has the talent and the tenacity, but he also has his demons, and it's these that threaten to overthrow his burning ambition.Duncan was taught everything he knows by his father, Charlie, a former trainer whose career and reputation were destroyed when a series of bitter rivalries got out of hand. It ruined him and Charlie hasn't ...

Everything seems to be going right for brilliant young jockey Duncan Claymore. A career on the up, a beautiful wife, and all the trappings of wealth. But Duncan is haunted by the death of one of his arch-rivals. He may not have pulled the trigger, but he still has blood on his hands.As Duncan struggles to keep his focus on the job, Michelle O'Brien - a friend and talented fellow jockey - is killed and Duncan knows this was far from a tragic accident. He's never liked William Osborn...