The bloodstock business turns sour in this tale of
kidnapping, drug deals, resentment and violence. Shane,
the young boss of a Thoroughbred racing outfit fires a
hand, Krebs, for slovenly and cruel work practices.
Simultaneously old Vic, ex-jockey, is forced into
retirement. The two jobless men conspire with another man
to extort the cash from horse sales by means of kidnapping.
Pennsylvania never looked so dark as in DANGEROUS
DECEPTION. I can't figure what drew Krebs to the world of
horses at all, because he doesn't like them or the work,
and acting up around young racehorses gets people killed.
He's happy to commit a federal offence for a share of five
hundred thousand dollars, and smirks as he uses a cattle
prod on a chained victim. Having second thoughts, Vic gains
help from another elderly hand but fails to do anything
useful like calling the police. Thieves fall out and it is
clear that Krebs never meant to return his captive Shane
alive. Meanwhile Shane's father Mike is getting a search
underway and the culprits and hideout seem obvious to him.
He doesn't call the police either. A biker gang called the
Nomads is on its way to rendezvous in the old mansion where
Shane is being held, and they don't like outsiders.
This is closer to 'Reservoir Dogs' than to 'Secretariat',
with a strange flavour from sentences such as: "Her full
perfect breasts to remain exposed." Cindy McDonald has
assembled a cast of odd characters, from unremittingly sour
stable hands to a woman who thinks white wine should be
uncorked and left to breathe. Perhaps the most unusual is
Luzetta, the elderly daughter of a horror film director who
camps out in her crumbling mansion, devoid of money but not
of good intent. I did like the few insights into the horse
training world but we could have done with more of them and
less of brutality to suit a general readership. If you
enjoy reading about dirty deeds and violent crime,
DANGEROUS DECEPTION could be just the ticket.
Vic Deveaux’s glory days as a winning jockey have ended,
but he refuses to accept that pile of horse hockey!
When the West family asks Vic to take an easier position at
their horse farm Westwood, he becomes enraged and teams up
with two greedy stable hands in a scheme to kidnap the
West’s younger son Shane.
When Vic discovers that his new-found friends have murder
on their minds, things turn ugly.
Suddenly, Vic finds himself between the rock and the hard
place. . He has betrayed his good friend, Eric West, but
will he participate in his son’s murder as well?
Not content to sit and wait for her men to bring her
brother home, Kate West convinces homicide detective Carl
Lugowski to check out a hunch at an old abandoned mansion.
Soon, they’re trapped in a hornet’s nest of a notorious
biker gang.
Oh yeah, Vic’s deception has placed the West family in more
danger than they know what to do with!