NEWS&VIEWS continued... When Izzie tells Mrs. A what she has learned,
ontinued...
Mrs. A makes the changes that she has con- trol over and notices an immediate change in Commander’s behavior. She agrees to look into Commander’s accusations, but as a former journalist, her second most important rule is “if your mother says she loves you, check it out," so she contacts a lawyer friend who specializes in prosecuting child molesters, and taps the talents of her former newspaper colleagues to help her investigate.
Once Dante stops biting Mrs. A, it’s time for him to do his job and win the Special Adult Hunter division at the Virginia Horse Cen- ter show series. Jaff e herself has shown on the hunter circuit, and lives in the Lexington, VA, area, so she is able to bring the show world and Lexington area vividly to life. Trouble starts al- most immediately, as the groom driving Ronny Mancuse’s car is in a terrible accident, and Mancuse is more upset about his car than the groom. T e police show up to investigate be- cause the brake lines were cut, so if the groom doesn’t live, it’s murder. When Madison’s mother, Belinda, confronts Mancuse at the show, everyone hears, confi rming Dante’s narrative. T e next morning, Mancuse is found dead in the tackroom, and Belinda is ar- rested. T e local police go with the convenient theory that the Belinda killed Mancuse because of her daughter, and Izzie and Mrs. A can’t ex- actly tell them that Dante says someone else did it since the footsteps sounded diff erent than the ones when she had been there earlier, but he can’t say who he heard. T roughout the novel, Jaff e weaves in the reason for Safe Sport and how many in the horse show world have been quick to oppose it, protecting the predators. Mrs. A, who didn’t train with Mancuse, goes
on to be crowned champion in the Special Adult Hunter division in the fi rst week of the show because Dante lives up to his promise. Once she’s achieved her goal, it’s time to really investigate the murder of Mancuse, but some- one is determined to stop her, which makes the suspect pool grow larger than Belinda. Almost everyone has a motive, from blackmail to re- venge, and the list of suspects grows longer than Dante’s list of complaints. When it’s Mrs. A’s turn to ride again later in
the show series, something happens to Dante and he ends up injuring Mrs. A badly (but when he recovers, he tells Izzie that it was not his fault, he thinks he was drugged and couldn’t control himself ). Now that Mrs. A is unable to ride, she devotes her time to solving not only Mancuse’s murder, but also to fi nding out who seems to want her dead too. Because she writes murder mysteries, Mrs. A likes to joke that she kills people for a liv- ing, but it can be diffi cult to come up with new and clever ways to kill off characters. Like her protagonist does in her novels, Jaff e has killed off the villain in a unique way that gives the characters the opportunity to explore the op- tions, and keeps the reader guessing. Jaff e has an excellent ear for dialogue, a feel for pace, and a quick sense of humor, so the conversations with Dante feel sincere. Even though this is a murder mystery with an unsettling topic, the book is humorous and engaging, but somber when it needs to be. Jaff e calls out the hypocrisy of the horse show world that pretends to love horses but goes to obscene lengths to get the desired results. From electric spurs, to cocaine and other drugs, to physical abuse, it’s impossible to reconcile the fact that the governing bodies proclaim that the welfare
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Kudos to Laila Edwards of Annapolis, who was named to the 2025 USEF Dressage Training Under 21 Athletes program.
of the horse is the utmost concern, yet they are constantly forced to come up with new medi- cation tests and rules as competitors push the boundaries in order to win a ribbon. T e most recent issue of the United States Equestrian Federations’s magazine has over four pages (of small print) dedicated to listing the Penalties for Rule Violations. Horses were subjected to cannabinoids, and various tranquilizers or sed- atives. And these were just the riders and train- ers who were caught. But a rider who was seen on multiple videos beating a horse? Crickets, or a weak “we’re still tracking down witnesses.” As for Safe Sport, a young friend of Jaff e’s was molested by her well-known trainer. When the young woman reported him, the horse show world circled around him to support him os- tracizing her and ending her career. Jaff e may be vox clamantis in deserto, but
anyone who knows her knows that she’s not backing down from the fi ght. Sadly, the regular equine presses refused to publish Commander Speaks, with one editor saying that it wasn’t “in the industry’s best interest” to publish, even though it was well-written and engaging. Com- mander Speaks is being self-published, and will be available on Amazon.
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