Some myths take longer to die than others. For students of equine history, the passion that these animals inspire in their owners and breeders often act as a veil, impenetrable for scientists and historians trying to get to the facts. In Horses, Ludovic Orlando, who has been gathering the facts jaw bone by jaw bone for two decades, deploying the latest technology, appears to have pierced the veil, finally, though with many a surprising turn to keep the readers on edge, as though enjoying a detective novel.