Dick Francis

 

Bonecrack Dead Cert Decider* Risk Slay Ride Smokescreen Trial Run Whip Hand 1964 Nerve* 1965 For Kicks* 1966 Flying Finish* 1967 Blood Sport*

1969 Enquiry* 1969 Forfeit* 1971 Rat Race* 1974 Knock Down* 1975 High Stakes* 1976 In the Frame* 1981 Reflex* 1982 Twice Shy* 1982 Banker* 1984 The Danger* 1985 Proof* 1986 Break In*

1987 Bolt* 1987 Hot Money* 1988 The Edge* 1989 Straight* 1990 Longshot* 1991 Odd Against* 1991 Comeback* 1992 Driving Force* 1994 Wild Horses* 1995 Come to Grief* 1996 To the Hilt * Titles with descriptions

• Banker (1982)*
  Young investment banker Tim Ekaterin suddenly finds himself involved in the cutthroat world of thoroughbred racing-and discovers his unexceptional world of business blown to smithereens.
  
  When the multimillion dollar loan he arranges to finance the purchase of Sandcastle, a champion, is threatened by an apparent defect in the horse, Tim searches desperately for an answer. And he falls headlong into violence and murder. Even so he cannot stop. He must find the key to the murders. And to Sandcastle.
  
  
• Blood Sport (1967)*
  Gene Hawkins, a British civil servant to the world that didn'tknow his qualifications as a superb business "secret agent," was an extremely attractive and deeply embittered man. Apparently by accident - Gene rightly suspected it was no accident but an attempt at murder - he became involved in a hunt for one of the world's great thoroughbred stallions, a horse named Chrysalis, which had evidently been hi-jacked somewhere between Kennedy Airport and Lexington, Kentucky, stud farm.
  
  Gene's involvement began in the waters of a lock in the Thames and continued across the ocean to America, a far as the dude ranches of the West and Las Vegas and Jackson Hole. And as he hunted the great stallion (and two other celebrated stallions which had vanished as well), he discovered a good deal about himself, and something about a lovely seventeen-year-old girl who kept crossing his path.
  
  Gene was an able and tough and intelligent man; the opposition was just as tough and able - and almost as intelligent.
  
  
• Bolt (1987)*
  Violence streaks like lightning in a race to the death - when Dick Francis pits good against evil as only he can.
  
  His name is Kit Fielding, and you have met him before. In Break In, he endeavored to save lives, heal family wounds, and fend off the incursions of corruption - while managing to be the tallest and busiest jockey in steeplechase racing. That was for starters.
  
  Now he's about to be involved in solving a truly heinous crime. Someone is hooting horses with a weapon ironically called a "humane killer" and will persist in doing so until the obscene rules by which he plays are turned against him.
  
  Enter Kit, a decent man with a mission: Stop the killing, whatever it takes. That's no easy task in the best of times, and these days things are rough. Not only is he losing the woman he adores to an aristocrat who happens to be a prince of a guy; he's also being bullied embarrassed and menaced both by an aspiring arms merchant, whose product will imperil the world - if it ever makes it off the drawing board - and by a malevolent scoundrel whose fondest wish is the utter ruination of Kit and his line.
  
  As push comes to shove, and the odds on evil rise to an all-time high, Kit must plunge into the very heart of darkness, taking a page from his adversaries' book. To safeguard the people he loves, Kit realizes, a man must sometimes go beyond civilized law - and strike out for a brand of justice that sears even as it purifies.
  
  With Bolt, Dick Francis has created a thriller as galvanizing as anything he has ever written. For sheer suspense and great humanity, Bolt is unquestionably a hands-down winner - lengths ahead of the pack.
  
  
• Bonecrack
• Break In (1986)*
  Blood ties can mean trouble. Kit Fielding, proud heir to tradition and sporting hero to legions of fans, learns this lesson to his rapidly mounting regret. his close, even telepathic kinship with his twin sister Holly draws him into a crusade to save her marriage from ruinous scandal. But his intercession, both on an off the track, proves more costly than he'd imagined, thrusting him into a deadly contest of wit and will with a ruthless media czar, a black-hearted baron, and an unexpectedly violent adversary far too close to home for comfort.
  
  
• Comeback (1991)*
  Fresh from the posting in Tokyo, young British First Secretary Peter Darwin decides to holiday in England before taking up his next assignment for the Foreign Office. During a brief stopover in Miami, Peter is accidentally caught in a scuffle that leaves two acquaintances beaten and robbed. Peter stands by his new friends until they are safely delivered to their next destination: Gloucestershire, England, his childhood home and scene of long-buried memories. As his involvement with the doctor's plight grows, and as more racehorses meet an untimely end, Peter realizes that events from his own past are the keys to saving some decent people - and the things they love - from destruction.
  
  
• Come to Grief (1995)*
  After constant requests from fans to bring back Sid Halley, the champion jockey turned investigator of Odds Against and the breakout thriller Whip Hand, Dick Francis does just that in his new novel. Although more than a decade has passed since the publication of Whip Hand, little time has elapsed in Sid Halley's life. Still in his mid-thirties, he remains troubled, courageous, unwilling to admit defeat to disabling injury or corruption. Now, though, Sid faces nineties dilemmas and hazards even more serious than those he once faced in horse racing, the passion that cost him his hand, and "the only sport so dangerous that ambulances follow the athletes from start to finish."
  
  "I had this friend that everyone loved," Halley says, "and I put him on trial....I grieved for the loss of a friendship, for a man who still looked the same but was different, alien...despicable. I could much more easily have grieved for him dead."
  
  Having exposed an adored racing figure as a monster, Sid must testify at the man's trial. But the morning of his appearance, a tragic suicide shatters the proceedings and jars Halley's conscience. Plagued by regret and the suspicion that there's more to the death than has yet come to light, he is catapulted into days of hard, rational investigation, heart-searching torments, and the gravest of perils. Business as usual for Sid...
  
  
• The Danger (1984)*
  Kidnapping is Andrew Douglas' business: they take them, he finds them.
  
  But it isn't so simple when Alessi Censi, golden-girl jockey, disappears, followed by the young child of a derby winner and the senior steward of a Jockey Club.
  
  From Italy to England to Washington, D.C., Andrew's caseload is suddenly, violently overflowing.
  
  And he must fight triply hard to keep his own name off the growing list of victims.
  
  
• Dead Cert*
• Decider*
  Free choice? According to architect, engineer, and jobbing builder Lee Morris, there's no such thing. Choice is preordained by personality, of that the young entrepreneur is sure. Then he becomes involved with Stratton Park racecourses, which faces ruin at the hands of the combative clan that whoilly owns it. Connected with but not related to any of the family's warring factions, he nonetheless is drawn into the gray - reluctant, yet attracted by compulsions he does not fully understand.
  
  But when the infighting turns violent, Lee finds he is a major player in a supremely dangerous game. With multimillions on the line and menace edging closer, he wrestles with the most critical decision of his life. One path leads to safety, the other to disaster, even death. Which is which? And does he really have a choice at all?
  
  
• Driving Force (1992)*
  Young ex-jockey Freddie Croft owns a profitable fleet of horse vans that convey runners to the course. A man who has a few illusions about racing's smarmier aspects, Freddie is a stickler for security. But even he is startled by the violence that erupts when a hard, fast rule is broken: Never pick up a hitchhiker.
  
  In what will be the first of many ironies, the passenger - not the driver - turns up dead. And if one corpse is bad for business, what happens next could well be fatal: Freddie is swept unknowingly into the vortex of a malign conspiracy in which appearances deceive and the cost of being duped is murderously high. Tilting at the shifting shadows cast by his elusive adversaries, he must summon up extraordinary guile and courage to protect his enterprise - and save his life.
  
  
• The Edge (1988)*
  The ad was irresistable - and prophetic: "A mystery that will grab you by the throat. A stunning experience. All around you the story will unfold. Clues will appear....BEWARE MANY PEOPLE ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM."
  
  When young Tor Kelsey, undercover security operative for the British Jockey Club, masquerades as a waiter on a horse-racing junket called The Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train, he's told to expect trouble - in the villainous person of one Julius Apollo Filmer. But what awaits him surpasses even the teasers for the on-board entertainment, a full-fledged mystery drama, with actors impersonating passengers, and all manner of staged incidents, from lovers' quarrels to murder. Almost immediately, the promised diversion turns horrifyingly true, as the luxury train winds its way across Canada, strewing a trail of real-life violence in its wake.
  
  First, unexpected happenings befall a private railroad car belonging to a rich and troubled racing family. Then, sabotage on the Mystery Train itself threatens the affluent owners and racing fans with a full-speed collision....And then, someone dies....
  
  Julius Apollo is a genius of blackmail and other forms of corruption. He is clearly the mastermind behind the chain of mishaps, but Tor is well aware that his nemesis is his equal in cleverness and guile. A man who murders without qualm and destroys reputations without guilt is hard to nail, but Tor vows to trap him with a particularly shocking sort of surprise.
  
  
• Enquiry (1969)*
  Kelly Hughes had been barred from racing, from race courses, and even from racing stables - which posed quite a problem, as he had been living above a racing stable. This meant he had, while he was barred (which might be forever), no livelihood and no home. Hughes knew he hadn't done anything wrong. He had not pulled back the red-hot favorite so a lesser horse from the same stable had been able to win. But what Hughes knew to be true didn't matter to the Steward. The evidence was all very much against him. His future seemed to be no future - but he was determined to prove his innocence.
  
  
• Flying Finish (1966)*
  He worked as Henry Grey for Angelia Bloodstock Agency, but his father, the Earl of Creggan, was old and frail, and his mother kept introducing Henry to heiresses, hoping that with the family fortunes properly bolstered by a rich marriage, the ancestral home could be saved from wormwood.
  
  Henry kept avoiding the heiresses and, because he found his job dull, spend as much time as he could riding an amateur jockey in steeplechase races and flying small planes commercially for a man named Tom Wells. Working for Wells, whom he liked, he was able to keep his identity hidden. Henry's life should have been full enough, but it wasn't, and he finally went to Yardman Transport, Ltd., where a friend of his worked, and applied for the job of traveling head groom, which involved ferrying race horses and brood mares to the continent and to the United States.
  
  He got the job and with it came trouble. The trouble began with a nineteen-year-old stable boy and went on until it included the disappearance of some of Henry's co-workers.
  
  But life had its pleasanter moments with an Italian girl named Gabriella. Then, suddenly, the trouble took over everything, even Gabriella.
  
  
• For Kicks (1965)*
  Daniel Roke didn't want the job. It didn't matter that the man who called himself the Earl of October was offering more money than he'd ever imagined. Daniel couldn't leave his Australian stud farm to go help look into an English horse-doping scandal.
  
  Or so he said at first. But soon he was in England, taking over investigative duties vacated by a racing journalist who had died in what was described as an auto accident. And soon enough Daniel learned that men who would give drugs to horses would do much worse to human beings.
  
  
• Forfeit (1969)*
  James Tyrone, a racing reporter for a London scandal sheet, knew that fellow writer Bert Chekov was a drunk, but he always thought he was an honest one. But when Bert suddenly died in a "accidental" fall from a window, Tyrone suspected the clues to his death might be found in some suspicious columns he'd written touting can't-lose horses-who mysteriously failed to show up on race day.
  
  In between trips to cover the next big race and secret rendezvous with his sensual new mistress, Tyrone knew he'd prove that Chekov had been murdered. But he didn't know the terrifying risk involved in proving it.
  
  
• High Stakes (1975)*
  Steven Scott, inventor (among his inventions the world-famous Rag Toys), was also a race-horse owner, and had been for three years. He was especially proud of one of his horses, Energise, a beautiful black hurdler.
  
  Jody Leeds, who had been Scott's adviser and trainer ever since he'd bought his first horse, had helped Energise win the last race, and he'd come to chat with Scott afterward. He and Scott were standing outside the weighing room of Sandown Park when Scott told Leeds he was taking his horses away from him.
  
  "Come on, Steve," Jody said. "You're kidding me."
  "No."
  "You're crazy. I just won you a race."
  "I'm taking the horses away," Scott said. "And we'll start with Energise. You can leave himm when you go home."
  
  Jody was rigid with fury. "I am taking that horse home with me, and nothing is going to stop me."
  
  Their confrontation developed into a public quarrel that eventually attracted the attention of the press - the regular press and the sporting press. And the press was, generally on the side of the trainer.
  
  Steven Scott found he had his friend Charlie - a very rich and able aide - to back him up, and he also acquired the unexpected help of a bright, beautiful young American named Alexandra Ward.
  
  
• Hot Money (1987)*
  It was stupid to be afraid, I thought. It was home, the house I'd been brought up in. One couldn't be frightened by home. One was.
  
  When you are saddled with relatives like those of jockey Ian Pembroke, you've got valid cause for concern. For starters, there's Ian's father, Malcolm, a gold arbitrageur with a Midas touch in everything but wives (he's had five.) Then there are the ex-wives themselves: Ian's grudge-bearing mother,; a vicious pair called "the witches"; a fourth dead in a tragic accident; and now the last and most detestable, a murder victim.
  
  When, in the wake of her brutal death, Malcolm's own life is threatened, Ian assumes the dual role of bodyguard and sleuth. Quickly he surmises the perpetrator must be either an ex-wife or one of their generally hapless, chronically greedy offspring. And what a bunch of step-siblings they are: a shiftless snob, an anorexic brat, an embittered, henpecked husband, a belligerently bohemian poetess, among others. Every single one has a motive, few have an alibi, and none, frankly, seems above murdering for wealth.
  
  As Ian perseveres in his search back into the past trying to unearth the childhood roots of a vengeful madness, the danger to both him and Malcolm escalates. Before the truth is out, Ian will discover more than he ever wanted to-about hate that builds silently through the years, about the terrible price we pay for our fathers' sins, and about a twisted knot of passion compelled to turn love to punishment.
  
  
• In the Frame (1976)*
  When artist Charles Todd finds his cousin's home burgularized and his cousin's wife dead, he wants only to help the shattered husband - now a police suspect. But his good intentions take a beating in a globe-spanning manhunt as he tries, against odds, to unravel the intricate threads of a sinister tapestry of arson, theft, and murder.
  
  
• Knock Down (1974)
  Mrs. Kerry Sanders, that very wealthy American lady, had engaged John Dereham, ex-prize-wining jockey, to buy a steeplechaser for the son of a special friend. The son was Nicol Brevett, an aggressive young man with a sudden, dangerous temper. But there was more than wealth and sophistication in this horse deal. As he left the stables he took a crushing blow on the head and heard a voice say: "We don't want your money, we want your hose." And that was just the beginning.
  
  
• Longshot (1990)*
  John Kendall is a w3riter whose books run the gamut from travel guides to manuals on safety in the jungle and the desert. His agent touts him as inquisitive and capable, but he knows that his client has a strong impulsive break.
  
  When John, in the hungry nterval between the acceptance and the publication of his first novel, turns to work that will at least pay the bills, the decision seems less an impulsive act than a matter of necessity. Although he knows little about racing, his new project is the biography of a racehorse trainer. Soon enough John discovrs that it takes all his skills and ingenuity to complete this new book. In fact, the perils described in his survival guides pale next to the dangers in rural England.
  
  "Impulse will kill you one of these days," his agent had warned.
  
  John Kendall should have listened, but he didn't - not by a longshot.
  
  
• Nerve (1964)*
  Rob Finn, one of the best young steeplechase jockeys (and more and more people were noticing how good he was), had been standing next to Art Mathews when Mathews shot himself in the center of the parade ring at the Dunstable races. Shortly after, Finn was sent for and asked if he'd known any reason why Mathews should have wished to end his life.
  
  "Mr. Kellar might know," Finn had said.
  
  But what was really happening no one seemed to know. And the tension around the track grew. Another jockey began to have trouble, this time a younger jockey - and then another jockey - and then Finn was in trouble too.
  
  This is an unusually exciting and well-written novel, filled with suspense and a tremendous amount of fascinating inside information about the world of steeplechae racing: the jockeys, the owners, the track-followers.
  
  
• Odds Against (1991)*
  Steeplechase jockey Sid Halley was forced to retire when a devastating accident crippled his left hand. Now he spends his days working for a detective agency. Recently separately from his wife, he struggled to adjust not only to his new single life out of racing but also to his handicap. On a routne stakeout, he walks straight into a bullet and his life is changed - again.
  
  Halley lets nothing stand in his way as he searches for the man who shot him. The trail leads back to his old haunts on the racetraicks where an unfortunate accident points to a wicked conspiracy. Halley is the only one who can stop it, and the odds are against him...
  
  
• Proof (1985)*
  Wine merchant Tony Beach is no stranger to personal tragedy-or to the world of fine vintage wines. But when hidden hit men literally-and brutally-crash a society party he was as usual, expertly catered, Tony finds himself caught in the terrifying midst of a mystery that begins with sham scotch and counterfeit claret and escalates into hijacking-and murder. Strong drink indeed for a man of otherwise peaceful pleasures who must draw on every reserve of hidden courage to crack a sophisticated scam and to save many lives-especially his own.
  
  
• Rat Race (1971)*
  The bomb took a second to detonate. Public impact lasted three days. The investigations dragged on for weeks. But the four passengers who had been aboard the sabotaged aircraft were miraculously unharmed. Meaning that somewhere lurked a dissatisfied saboteur. And that, unless someone like pilot Matt Shore cracked the mystery, the bone-chilling danger wasn't over yet.
  
  
• Reflex (1981)*
  Dick Francis is no ordinary mystery writer, and jockey Philip Nore is no ordinary hero. When Nore began to suspect that a track photographer's fatal accident was really murder, he sets out to discover the truth and to trap the killer. Slowly, he unravels some nasty secrets of corruption, black mail, and murder-and unwittingly sets himself up as the killer's next target.
  
  
• Risk*
• Slay Ride*
• Smokescreen*
• Straight (1989)*
  As Derek Franklin, an injured steeplechase jockey, nears the end of his career, he is thrust into trouble and mayhem by the accidental death of his older brother, Greville: "I inherited my brother's desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses, and his mistress," Derek says. "I inherited my brother's life, and it nearly killed me."
  
  With danger besetting him from unknown directions, Derek discovers that honesty can be a deadly virtue and courage the provocation of escalating evil. His only hope of survival is to identify the enemy, but Greville, whose life had so many facets as the gemstones he imported, has left behind more philosophizing than useful clues. "The bad scorn the good," Greville wrote, "and the crooked despise the straight."
  
  On British racecourses the homestretch is called the finishing straight - the straight run to the winning post - and it is here that a race is finally won or lost. Derek Franklin must call on all his stamina and endurance just to complete the final furlong.
  
  
• To the Hilt (1996)
• Trial Run
• Twice Shy (1982)*
  Young physicist Jonathan Derry is given some musical tapes by a friend. But the tapes are really an elaborate computerized horse betting system that can make the owner a rich man-or a dead one. Once again, high speed thriller-master Dick Francis weaves a constant twisting plot, a wicked villain, non-stop action and an explosive showdown in a superb book that races to the finish line, leaving you breathless for more ...
  
  
• Whip Hand
• Wild Horses (1994)*
  Thomas Lyon finally has his chance to direct a potential blockbuster, based on the true story of an unsolved crime that rocked the horse racing world twenty-six years earlier. But a cryptic deathbed confession, an assault on an elderly woman, and a frightening threat lead Lyon to pick up the thread of this unfinished tale-and follow it through to its perilous end...
  
  

Ballantine Books
Random House Inc.
New York, N.Y. 10022

Jove Books
The Berkley Publishing Group
200 Madison Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10016

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