Author(s): Ray Berard

Novel | Aotearoa Fiction | Crime and Thriller

Pio Morgan is waiting outside a pub on a cold winter's night. There is a debt he must pay and no options left. What he does next drags a group of strangers into a web of confusion that over the course of a few days changes all their lives. There's the young Maori widow just trying to raise her children, the corporate executive hiding his mistake, the gang of criminals that will do whatever it takes to recover what they've lost and the outsider sent to town to try and figure out who did what. Time is running out for all of them as events take an increasingly sinister turn.

Winner ‘Best Debut’ in the 2016 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel  and long-listed for the 2017 Dublin Literary Award.

‘A crime story and a romance. Violence and compassion. Ray Bernard’s Inside the Black Horse is both a compelling journey into the dark world of gangs, drugs and killing and an engaging look at the mending of broken souls. An armed robbery that unexpectedly interrupts a drug deal sets the scene, thrusting good and evil against each other in a race to recover the loot. The reader is swept along and kept guessing until the final unravelling that is both surprising and simple.’
David Lomas
Award-winning crime/investigative journalist and investigator on the acclaimed TV series ‘Missing Pieces’ and ‘Lost & Found’