Pony narrates half of this story while crossing the American continent a few times. In a fascinating twist, the most-loved of all his former riders, Penny Marcus, loses her freedom through an accusation of murder. PONY CONFIDENTIAL demonstrates that some people need animals and some animals need better specimens of humanity.
This unusual crime story’s hero is a modern version of Black Beauty or Smokey. A children’s pony all his long life, Pony has borne many names and held many grudges. He at first despises Penny, for selling him – all ponies he knows get sold when outgrown and end up in riding schools, elderly and bored. But animal friends remind him that before the sale, Pony let himself and another horse, Arete, loose and they ran off. Penny was left in the dark woods with a strange young man. He let Penny down when she needed him, and maybe she got hurt as a result.
Trying to find Penny, strongly feeling that she is in a bad situation, Pony uses his many skills adeptly to open doors, forage in gardens, hitch rides with racehorses and pal up with birds, rats, dogs and a goat. Paired with these comic touches, on his long journey he learns the true fates of many an old horse. Several times, I actually said “Oh no!” aloud, and dreaded what might happen. This story is not for the young and tender.
Penny, meanwhile, is now the mother of a difficult teen girl, Tella, and is in jail awaiting trial. The author Christina Lynch has adroitly swapped places between the mobile pony getting occasionally tied down, and Penny, a human, caged in a system that gives her no choices or information. Penny might as well be a stabled pony. Her fellow female prisoners tell her about bad marriages, having a baby while a felon and more. She tries telling her defender what happened, twenty-five years ago, on the occasion her pony got loose. If she didn’t kill anyone, who did?
While it is definitely a read for adults or mature teens, there isn’t much violence in PONY CONFIDENTIAL, and at the start, readers could be forgiven for thinking it sweet. The irascible remarks of the pony, and hard looks at the ill-treatment and neglect of animals, make it otherwise. Penny’s story also shows deficiencies in the penal system for those awaiting trial, who are presumed innocent but can’t afford bail. The only criticism I have is that Penny never mentions the name she gave her pony, which would have been natural for her to say. As for Pony, he demonstrates the wisdom and moods of a real pony. Maybe they do solve crimes.
In this one-of-a-kind mystery with heart and humor, a hilariously grumpy pony must save the only human he’s ever loved after discovering she stands accused of a murder he knows she didn’t commit.
Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with the only little girl he ever loved, Penny, who he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years.
Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her are the memories of her precious, rebellious pony.
Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer.
This acutely observant feel-good mystery reveals the humanity of animals and beastliness of humans in a rollicking escapade of epic proportions.
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