This Bronze Age adventure featuring a Hittite charioteer comes from the author of mysteries about Hani, an Egyptian diplomat under Pharaoh Akhenaten. N.L. Holmes moves to where modern Turkey lies, to explore the alliances and treacheries of the Hatti or Hittites. THE LIGHTNING HORSE shows that horses drawing chariots were crucial in battles, and the imagery of three thousand war chariots, each drawn by two strong stallions and carrying three men, two of whom were armed with bows, is fearsome.

Tiwatipara is the young man who prepares the king’s chariot one day at the racetrack. Sports prove manhood and hone skills in this culture, but the king is called away and his son and grandfather take to the track instead. The accident that follows seems to be caused by egotistical showing off, but Tiwatipara feels immense guilt that the prince and two beautiful horses were killed and the older man lamed. Until he is told that the axle had been partly sawn through prior to the race. Someone intended the royal family harm.

No shortage of suspects, although few people had access. Piyamaradu is a breakaway lord who wants rule of his family lands in exchange for being a loyal vassal. But King Hattushili already owns the land. Groom Zidanza, the long-time friend of Tiwatipara, is also some distant cousin of the royal family. Prince Nerikkali might be next in line if the king died and he could prove himself. Benteshina is another vassal whose daughter is assigned by the king to marry a prince; he’s constantly around, and can seize advantages.

The women don’t get much say in matters. A princess called Lalantiwashha is at twenty, old to be single, saved for a valuable alliance. Most girls are wed from thirteen. And because women die in childbirth, second marriages and step-siblings complicate family lines. Tiwatipara meets Lalantiwashha while training her young brothers as charioteers, and they take a fancy to each other. But the royal daughter can’t marry any horseman she chooses.

The cast seems complicated due to the unfamiliar names, but there are not that many main characters and we see their assigned roles within the community, so the book is easier reading than one might expect. At heart, this galloping tale is a murder mystery, without all the complex methods of detection we expect today. Bronze Age life was short and brutal, THE LIGHTNING HORSE demonstrates. But horses were horses.