Stress Point

Manny Shepherd arrives at college on a scholarship with his father’s secret diaries and a shadow he doesn’t yet understand.

Dan Shepherd was a journeyman jockey who died young, and Manny has never known the truth behind his death.

Manny finds an unlikely partner in James Carne-Anton — aristocratic, obsessive, and possessed of a rare genius for working metal. Bound by intellect rather than background, they devise something brilliant and dangerous: a scheme to tilt the outcome of a race without leaving a trace.

They don’t realise they’ve been watched from the beginning.

Their success pulls them into the crosshairs of a long-established criminal network — and into the orbit of Harriet Richards, a government operative whose interest in the boys predates anything they think they’ve done themselves.

The game was never theirs to run.

To survive, you have to find the weak spot before it breaks you.