Escaping from a marriage gone bad and the wreckage of a distinguished career, champion hunter rider Rusty Coulter wants nothing more than to immerse himself in the comforting anonymity of teaching English at a large university in Texas, and to keep his hand in with horses by helping out part-time as manager and bookkeeper at a local stable.Coulter has achieved a precarious peace of mind when he stumbles upon the battered corpse of the flamboyant chairman of the English department, and becomes unwillingly plunged into a maelstrom of deception, dishonesty, sex, and sudden death. The detective assigned to the case, a retired NYPD lieutenant, enlists Coulter's reluctant help in sorting through the suspects. Coulter quickly realizes that the serene groves of academe can be just as dangerous as anything he's encountered in the glamorous, high-stakes world of the East Coast show ring-and his job at the stable proves no less perilous!