Girls and Their Horses is a character study that successfully masquerades behind a thriller novel. If Brazier was a less adept author, many of the choices her characters made would have seemed nonsensical. Yet Brazier crafts her characters with histories, motivations and senses of self that clash wonderfully, maintaining tension throughout a novel that winds at times before reminding us that we are witnessing the fallout that culminated in a person's murder. I found this story fascinating, especially because it zeros in on a competitive world that the average person will never view from the inside.