Sasscer & TRAVELS OF QUINN Featured on Augusta's ABC "Jennie" Show!

The Jennie Montgomery Show airs on Augusta's ABC Affiliate, Channel 6 News. This segment aired in 2020, on publication day of Sasscer Hill's newest novel, TRAVELS OF QUINN

Watch the video to learn about this author's life and unusual journey on her road to publication.

FLAMINGO ROAD

So thrilled to receive this first and fabulous trade review from Kirkus on FLAMINGO ROAD. I am also very appreciative of the unnamed reviewer who read the story closely and got it right! Thank you Kirkus.

FLAMINGO ROAD 

Sasscer Hill

Review Issue Date: January 15, 2017
Online Publish Date: December 27, 2016
Publisher:Minotaur
Pages: 320
Price ( Hardcover ): $25.99
Publication Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-250-09691-3
Category: Fiction
Classification: Mystery

The dark and dirty underbelly of horse racing is exposed when a Baltimore cop goes to visit relatives in Florida.Internal Affairs has been very interested in Fia McKee ever since she shot and killed the man who was choking Shyra Darnell, a hot walker at Pimlico who's so afraid of someone that she refuses to answer any questions. When Fia's beloved father, a racehorse trainer, was murdered five years earlier, Fia joined the police and has never given up on his case, which has now turned very cold. Put on leave, she answers a call for help from her brother, Patrick, whose wife has walked out and left him with a horse-crazy teen. Someone's been slaughtering people's horses for meat, and when Cody, her niece Jilly's gelding, becomes a victim, Fia gets mad and plots to get even. The night of the gelding's death, she meets a man named Zanin who runs the Protect the Animals League and is trying to stop the carnage. Zanin is sure the guilty party is a Cuban-American who lives in the dangerous and lawless area known as the C-Nine Basin, but no one's been able to prove that he's involved. Meantime, Fia learns that her problems back home may go away if she agrees to go undercover for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau at Florida's Gulfstream Park, where horses that shouldn't be winning are suddenly showing amazing talent. Fia eases into a job as an exercise rider for an honest trainer while trying to discover what new, so far undetectable, drug is turning ordinary horses into superstars. Hill (Racing from Evil, 2016, etc.) boasts a knowledge of horses and the very real problems in horse racing that fill this sound mystery with thrills and hair-raising action from first to last. 

HORSE OF THE DELAWARE VALLEY Reviews "Racing from Death."

Following review appears in April 12 issue of “Horse of the Delaware Valley.” http://www.horsedelval.com/

Sex, betrayal, murder propel new race track thriller from author Sasscer Hill
By MARTHA BARBONE

Author Sasscer Hill has hit her stride with her second, and hopefully one of many more, race track mysteries, ‘Racing from Death’.

Jockey and assistant trainer, Nikki Latrelle, who readers first met in Hill’s Full Mortality, is charged with the responsibility to take a load of Virginia-breds from Laurel Park in Maryland to Colonial Downs near Richmond for six weeks, where owners would get 50-percent on top of purse money for Virginia- breds.

Before loading up the van, Latrelle had already stumbled on the beginning of what would become an adrenaline rushing stay when a fellow jock died suddenly from designer weight-loss drugs.

At the funeral of Paco Martinez, the victim of the lethal concoction, Latrelle is approached by a stranger, Jay Cormack, an agent with the Operations and Enforcement arm of the Virginia Racing Commission, who asked her to be his eyes and ears on the backstretch in his investigation into illegal drugs.

At first she refused, but as events unfolded she was drawn in despite her misgivings.

Latrelle attracts danger like a magnet, and from the minute she and her friend and exercise rider, Lorna Doone, who had overcome her own drug demons, arrived at their assigned stabling, far on the backside near dense woods, the story takes the first of many plot twists when a strange man emerges, moaning, from the pines dragging a shovel saying, “Everybody knows, but they won’t tell.”

Driven off by Latrelle, Doone and the groom, Ramon, the man shuffles away, and, when the horses are settled in, the women leave to go to the rental cottage where they will be staying, only to be confronted by still more mystery and danger.

Racing from Death has all the elements of a compelling read, sex, betrayal, racing, danger and ultimately murder. Colorful characters abound, including an exotic and temperamental owner who was once a super-model and who is involved romantically with one of the prime suspects.

The mystic, Mello, who appeared in Full Mortality, arrives to soothe Latrelle's own horse, a filly so talented but equally unmanageable that she is nicknamed ‘Hellish’. Latrelle encounters some of the most unsavory gang members in the heart of their headquarters, a meth lab, to ever disgrace the pages of a novel where she barely escapes with her life.

Racing from Death, available at Amazon.com for $7.94, is a pageturner that does not disappoint.
Copyright © 2012 The Horse of Delaware Valley 03/16/2012

BOUCHERCON BOUND, WITH A MACAVITY LURKING IN THE WINGS

My mystery novel, FULL MORTALITY, was nominated for an Agatha Best First Award last winter. Though one of five finalists, the book did not win. Several of us “also rans” were moved to tears.

 But with a mental head slap, and the support of fellow writers, I moved on.

Next thing I know it’s summer and FULL MORTALITY is nominated for a Macavity Best First Mystery Award. I receive Twitter congrats from author Lawrence Block and New York Times writer, Joe Drape.

joedrape Joe Drape 

@ 

Congrats to @SasscerHill for high honors for her debut mystery novel Full Mortality. Must read, and look forward to more. 23 Jul

Oh boy, here we go again. I had so much fun at Boucherdon 2010. I saw author friends and idols

met Lee Child,

fought Jack Reacher,

and spoke on the “Off-beat Protagonists” Panel on Thursday, and on Friday a “30 on the 30" session they titled “Racing from Death: Mysteries at the Racetrack.”

I wasn’t under the extra pressure of an award nomination last year, didn’t know enough about the Macavity, and realized I’d better get educated right quick. 

After learning the basics (“Macavity's a mystery cat. He's called the Hidden Paw;
 For he's a master criminal who can defy the law . . .”) I emailed Janet Rudolph, founder of  the Mystery Readers Journal – whose members vote on the Macavity Awards.

“Is there a ceremony?” I asked. “Do we finalists know anything before hand, or do we sweat it out like I did at the Agathas, only knowing the results when the announcement is made?”

She replied, “The Macavity Awards will be given out during opening ceremonies. Sadly, you won't know if you won until 'the moment'...”

I thanked Janet for the reply and noticed my eye teeth are already watching my fingernails in preparation for the nail biting Bouchercon blast. 

“I must,” I thought, “be sure to pack a crutch supply of bourbon to help protect my nails in St. Louis.”

In the great event the gods bestow a Macavity Best First upon Full Mortality, I promise not to brandish my bottle of bourbon before the Bouchercon attendees. 

DERBY PICKS AND PICS

This post appeared earlier on Derby Day on the Mystery Reader International blog “Mystery Fanfare.”
http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2011/05/sasscer-hill-special-kentucky-derby.html

There are several colts I like in the Derby. A horse named Dialed In, whose trainer is Nick Zito; a horse named Nehro, with Steve Asmussen as the trainer, and finally my emotional pick, Pants on Fire.

How can you not like a racehorse with a name like Pants on Fire? My heart is bound to this colt and his female jockey because of the rider’s connection to my horse racing mystery, “Full Mortality.” My book features the young, female, Maryland-jockey,  Nikki Latrelle.  Two of the themes in the Latrelle series are “fighting the odds,” and “chasing the dream.” In the Derby, Pants on Fire will be ridden by a young Maryland gal who, like Nikki, is competing with the male jocks.  Her name is Anna Napravnik. Fans call her Rosie because of her red hair.

Many believe Pants on Fire has a lot of speed, but not the stamina to go the Derby distance of one and one-quarter miles. His pedigree and improving performances suggest otherwise.

“Fire’s” trainer is a man named Kelly Breen who knew his colt had brilliant speed. But Breen entered Fire into the one-million-dollar Loiuisiana Derby a few weeks back as a “rabbit” – that is, a horse to set a rocket pace that forces the other horses to go faster than they like, and allow a come-from-behinder with a late kick to blow by the field in the last strides. Fire was supposed to do this for Breen’s other entry, Nacho Business.

But Fire blossomed right before the Louisiana Derby, and despite Breen’s pre-race planning, he sensed his colt was sitting on a big race in the Louisiana Derby.

“I told Rosie,” Breen said, “that I thought this horse was coming into his own. So I said to her, ‘Give it a shot. Don’t just think we’re in here because we have nothing better to do. He’s doing awfully well. You don’t have to wing it and be a rabbit. Just be in a spot where you can win it when the time comes.’ ”

And she did!

Now, Pants on Fire is giving Anna Napravnik the chance to chase her biggest dream – winning the Kentucky Derby.  Can you imagine the remarks by pundits and the press if the redheaded, Anna “Rosie” Napravnik beats the boys and wins the Kentucky Derby riding a horse named Pants On Fire?

Expenses and scheduling precluded the Derby for me this year, but I'll be watching this fabulous race from the couch, bourbon in hand, and little purple "fascinator" Derby hat on head!

TWISTING THROUGH KENTUCKY

On April 20, I flew into Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport to attend the races at Keeneland and a book signing for my novel, FULL MORTALITY, at Joseph-Beth’s book store. Got to meet up with old and new friends, too.

The Amazing Paula Weglarz in the Paddock at Keeneland

Keeneland and the horse racing I watched on Thursday and Friday were fabulous. Silks, bourbon, ladies in amazing hats an perilous high heels. I even bought myself a "fascinator" in purple and black.  


Since everything in life is a trade off, I shouldn’t be surprised my Friday evening book signing at Joseph-Beth’s was routed by a tornado. When the warning siren went off shortly after seven p.m., I stared at the sky beyond the store’s glass ceiling and walls and felt more than a little uneasy.

Notice the dark sky and glass wall behind my signing post!

 The staff herded me and what might have been FULL MORTALITY customers down the escalators to the store’s first level, away from the glass. We were all scared, and I felt especially bad for the mothers in the store with little children.










We got lucky. The twister skipped over us, sucked itself back into the sky, and taught me something before it departed: tornados are not good for book signings! Most people left immediately after the all clear, anxious to check on their families and homes.


Still, there’s a rainbow at the end of this post on Lexington book signing and tornado watching. Hall-of-Famer and Kentucky Derby winning-jockey Kent Desormeaux showed up around nine and bought a copy of FULL MORTALITY. 


After reading the back cover text, he said, “So if I read this, I’ll be going back to my glory days in Maryland?” 


“Yes,” I said, giving myself a mental head slap. 


I’d never made a conscious connection between my novel about fictional Maryland jockey Nikki Latrelle and Kent Desormeaux, who after his 1986 rocket-ride through Maryland won an Eclipse award for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey. Desormeaux nabbed his first career stakes race on December 13, 1986, riding Godbey in the Maryland City Handicap at Laurel Park Racecourse, and I remember screaming at the TV set for this former Maryland Jockey to win the 1998 Kentucky Derby. He did. And he won it again in 2000 and 2008!

Multiple Derby Winner Kent Desmoreaux and Sasscer Hill

I got a bit more racing in early on Keeneland’s Saturday program. What a whirlwind of a trip.  I know, I know – that was lame. 


I want to thank Brooke Raby of Joseph Beth’s for making the absolute best of a bad situation, to Lexington’s Paula Weglarz for ferrying me about town and making sure I was dosed with Kentucky bourbon, and to the amazing Sheppard racing stables for allowing me in the Keeneland paddock for up close research for my favorite jockey, Nikki Latrelle.

 Assistant trainer Barry Wiseman (striped jacket) and Hall of Fame Trainer Jonathan Sheppard (on  far  side of horse) saddling Farmers Club April 21 in Keeneland's paddock.

FROZEN IN TIMONIUM: An Author’s Recent Book Signing Experience

When I arrived in Timonium on Thursday afternoon for the Maryland Horse World Expo, the thermometer had dipped well below freezing, the forecast called for snow, and I was battling a nasty cold virus.   
In the lobby of my motel, the desk clerk watched me roll my suitcase up to the counter, where I’d reserved a room for the expo book signing of my novel, “Full Mortality.”
When I reached the counter, I didn’t like the expression on the clerk’s face.
“Our computers are down,” she said.“I can’t check you in.  You could try coming back in about four hours.”
I forced a smile, shrugged, and headed for the “Cow Palace” exhibit hall at the Maryland State Fairgrounds where, on Friday,  I would share part of a booth with a jewelry seller named Lynne Shpak.  Outside the state fair buildings, cars, trucks, horse trailers and expo attendees mobbed the parking lot. People mostly had their heads down, trailing white breath as they hurried to get indoors. 

    Inside, I found Lynne’s booth and was happy with the small spot she’d assigned me on an aisle near the entrance. Not so happy about the set of eight fire doors facing my table only twenty feet away.  Daylight showed plainly between each set of doors and through gaps at the bottom. My feet froze at the sight.
Suck it up, Sasscer.  How bad could it be? 
        After successfully checking into my hotel room that night, I crashed.  Friday morning, I peeked through the curtains and discovered both the parking lot and my car were covered in about two inches of snow and ice. It could be worse, I told myself. 
I put my outer-gear on over my pajamas and went out to warm up the car, only the doors were frozen shut.  With temperatures in the teens, I pounded with the sides of my fists until I broke the ice seal on one rear door, and yanked it open. Crawling inside, I poured myself upside down from the back seat into the front seat, twisted upright, and started the car.  After hammering the driver door open from the inside with my feet, I left the car idling, fans and heaters at full blast, white exhaust pluming in the frigid air. 
Back in my room, I loaded up on hot coffee, warm clothes and makeup, then proceeded to back my old Lincoln into a hydrant the Fire Department had thoughtfully left jutting out on a concrete peninsula. The hydrant looked okay, so I kept driving. 
After parking at the Horse Expo, I opened the trunk of my car and an avalanche of snow fell through the crack between the rear window and the open trunk lid. The whole mess landed on my open box of my books, and I might have used a bad word.  
Fortunately, it was so cold, the ice didn't melt onto the book covers. Using a towel, I dusted the crystals from each book, then dragged the carton and other supplies into the Cow Palace. After two hours, I’d sold one novel and was ready to commit bookacide. Hawking my book caused a sore throat, and my cold was blossoming like deadly nightshade. 
Though freezing, our booth location received plenty of traffic and sales picked up later that day. Two expo booksellers even agreed to buy copies of FULL MORTALITY and added the novel to their book shelves.  
The wind howled most of Friday, January 21, and sucked the heat from the overhead space heaters out through the fire doors, simultaneously pulling the biting cold in. The draft pierced my snow boots and gnawed at my feet. It could only get better right?
Saturday morning a large water main in Timonium burst, and at noon, the city shut off the water supply to the fair grounds. There were hundreds of horses at the expo, tons of people, food services and toilets that no longer worked.  
Water was trucked in for the horses, and rollbacks brought in a load of Porta Potties and dumped them outside the Cow Palace. By the time I used one, it was nineteen degrees outside, dark and the “potty” so dimly lit inside that I repeatedly bumped against the little plastic urinal sticking out on the side. This made me want a bath, but, of course, there was no water.
An additional problem I call “Firedoor Woman,” liked to use the big emergency-exit-only doors every time she snuck a cigarette. 
When I’d see her ready to bust out, I’d yell, “Don’t open those doors!” 
She ignored me totally, but the cold she let in didn’t ignore me at all. Previously suicidal feelings turned homicidal, but I restrained myself throughout the rest of Friday.
In my room that night, I carefully set a combination on the room safe, made sure it worked and locked my jewelry inside.   
        Saturday morning the combination wouldn’t work, and I had to wait for a maintenance man to unlock the safe. It only took him five seconds to open up, and my new plan is to hide the valuables safely beneath the mattress.
At the fair grounds, life improved.  The  water was on, and I had a serious talk with Firedoor Woman. Finding her in her booth, I said, “Are you the person who keeps darting out the fire doors?”  
“Yeah,” she said, not looking at me. 
Voice calm, I explained to her that it was cold outside and that it might be a good idea to use the main entrance doors instead.  I was spoiling for a fight, and she knew it. Though she refused to look me in the eye, she never busted out the fire doors again. At least not while I was there.
Later, a gal named Paige came by the booth to tell me she’d read FULL MORTALITY last summer, that she’d loved it, and couldn’t wait for the next in the series to come out. Moments like this keep me going against all odds.

Another gal stopped by with a Pomeranian she’d rescued.  When she let me hold the little dog, the day warmed up even more.  Later, I visited a man who hand-rolled roasted almonds into a hot butter and sugar sauce.  Yum, life is good.
By five on Saturday, I’d sold forty-seven books, met a lot of really nice people, and was beyond ready to head home.  I trucked everything out to the car only to discover someone had blocked me in.
In the end, I got home safely without committing a crime against the obstructive car owner, and finally got up the nerve to examine my car for fire hydrant damage. Wow! Just a smidgeon of red paint on the bumper. It could have been worse, right?

Starred Review for FULL MORTALITY from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

Starred Review, Hot off the Press from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (EQMM)

*** Sasscer Hill: Full Mortality, Wildside, $13.95.  "Jockey Nikki
Latrelle, compelled to visit her upcoming stakes mount Gilded Cage late one night at Laurel Park, finds the mare dead in her stall. Other equine and human deaths follow.  First-time novelist Hill, herself a Maryland horse breeder, is a genuine find, writing smooth and vivid descriptive prose about racetrack characters and backstretch ambience that reek authenticity. Familiar plot elements are gracefully handled, including that old romantic-suspense conundrum: which of the attractive but mysterious males is the good guy and which the villain?"
-- Jon L. Breen, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine


EQMM is, “The best mystery magazine in the world, bar none.” – Stephen King


  

SECRETARIAT, the New Disney Film

Theme Song from "Secretariat."


Sunday, September 19, John Scheinman nabbed tickets for my husband and I to attend a screening of the new Disney film, “Secretariat.” Scheinman is the farsighted writer that the nearsighted Washington Post laid off. He may be their best, last-known horse-racing beat-writer.


Scheinman introduced Randall Wallace, an Oscar-nominated writer of screenplays and a film director who has worked with actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons and Mel Gibson, saying, “Randall knows what to do when he gets his hands on a rousing story.” Wallace surely had one with Secretariat and his feisty owner, Penny Chenery.

Sasscer Hill and Film Director Randall Wallace




I remember 1973 well. There were no women CEO’s in 1973, and Penny Chenery was up against it. Back then, I was the executive secretary for an all male DC aerospace industry association, which means I took the minutes at their meetings and served coffee. None of those men took me seriously, even when they couldn’t understand the monthly financial report, and I had to explain it to them. How could Penny Chenery’s persona in this movie not resonate with me?


Scheinman sat next to me in the theater and was obviously moved by the film. I sniffed my way through it, not because of the sad parts like the death of Penny’s father, but because of this colt’s phenomenal ability to touch human emotion, and because this movie is about themes I cherish -- fighting the odds and following your heart. Wallace brings it all home.


The director totally gets the comradery and competition among horse players, owners, trainers and backstretch workers. He nails the fact that many horses are natural born comedians, and though Scheinman probably identifies with the characters of real-life reporters, William Nack and Andrew Beyer, I suspect he struggled not to howl in the scene where Secretariat hoses Beyer with horse pee.


It’s hard for me, a horse woman, to give an objective review of this film. I’ve experienced a horse, that I both bred and pulled out of his mother, win my first race for me at Pimlico. I know the tension, the hope, and the fear far too well not to be moved by this movie. But here’s the thing, I knew exactly what was going to happen in each of Secretariat’s races, and I was still on the edge of my seat.


My husband, Daniel Filippelli, said he hadn’t been this moved by a film since he watched Kenneth Branagh’s Saint Crispin’s speech in Shakespeare’s “Henry the Fifth.” Could there be a more favorable comment?


When I stepped into the lobby afterwards, I looked at the people around me. They were all pumped, like when I walked out of the first "Star Wars" movie. And many of the people in that theater were not horse people.


Some reviewers get hung up on the absolute accuracy of historical details, but Wallace has not made a documentary. He has produced a great, entertaining film that will allow more people to understand the beauty and power of horse racing.


I think Randall Wallace is about to have a hit on his hands.




William Nack, pictured to the right above with Thomas Foley, is the author of, “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion.” The new movie was based on Nack’s book.

Thomas Foley, center, pictured below with Grant Witacre and Sasscer Hill, landed the role of exercise rider Jim Gaffney. Foley is the author of the soon-to-be-released book, “The Simple Game, An Irish Jockey’s Memoir.” Published by Caballo Press, the book comes with two “Secretariat” movie tickets at Caballopress.com.  Grant Whitacre portrays Paul Feliciano, who rode Big Red in his first two career starts as an apprentice, before the connections turned to the more experienced Ron Turcotte.