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Forfeit Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4.5/5 Bert Checkov was a Fleet Street racing correspondent with a talent for tipping non-starters. But the advice he gave to James Tyrone a few minutes before he fell to his death, was of a completely different nature. James investigates, and soon finds his own life, and that of his wife, at risk. Show more
For Kicks Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Proprietor of a stud farm in Australia's Snowy Mountains or muck-raking stable boy in Yorkshire? Danny Roke decides on the latter. It is the change of scene and the challenge that pushes Danny undercover, on the scent of a suspected... Show more
Flying Finish Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Lord Henry Grey was an amateur jockey and pilot. But when he decides to abandon his desk-bound job for an active career in the bloodstock market, he finds that there is more to couriering valuable horses around the world than he had ever suspected.
...
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Forfeit Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4.5/5 Bert Checkov was a Fleet Street racing correspondent with a talent for tipping non-starters. But the advice he gave to James Tyrone a few minutes before he fell to his death, was of a completely different nature. James investigates, and soon finds his own life, and that of his wife, at risk. Show more
For Kicks Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Proprietor of a stud farm in Australia's Snowy Mountains or muck-raking stable boy in Yorkshire? Danny Roke decides on the latter. It is the change of scene and the challenge that pushes Danny undercover, on the scent of a suspected... Show more
Flying Finish Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Lord Henry Grey was an amateur jockey and pilot. But when he decides to abandon his desk-bound job for an active career in the bloodstock market, he finds that there is more to couriering valuable horses around the world than he had ever suspected.
...
Show more
Field Of 13 Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4.5/5 In this collection of short stories the settings range from the national Hunt at Cheltenham, where a middle-aged owner falls in love with her jockey, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where the demon drink and wilting... Show more
Enquiry Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 3/5 Kelly Hughes is a jockey, labelled a cheat by a Steward's enquiry. To clear his name he investigates all those who gave evidence, including the Chief Steward who was being blackmailed. Kelly, helped by Roberta, his employer's daughter, finds out who the real villain is and saves the stables. Show more
Edge Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 2.5/5 A story of drama and intrigue set on the sinister side of the international racing circuit. Tor Kelsey, an undercover agent for the Jockey Club's Security Service trails Julius Apollo Filmer, a blackmailer and murderer, onto a luxury train carrying several racehorse owners across Canada. Show more
Driving Force Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 3/5 At 35, Freddie Craft has retired as a steeplechase jockey and now runs a fleet of motor horseboxes transporting runners from their stables to the races, or brood mares to the stud farms. When a hitch hiker is picked up and someone dies... Show more
Decider Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4.5/5 The privately owned Stratton Park racecourse faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Because of shares inherited from his mother, Lee Morris is unwillingly sucked into the turmoil. A half-outsider, he is faced with difficult choices which have deadly consequences. Show more
Dead Heat Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Max Moreton is a rising culinary star and his Newmarket restaurant, The Hay Net, has brought him great acclaim and a widening circle of admirers. But when nearly all the guests who enjoyed one of his meals at a private catered affair fall victim to severe food poisoning, his kitchen is shuttered and his reputation takes a hit. Scrambling to meet his next obligation, an exclusive luncheon for forty in the glass-fronted private boxes at the Two Thousand Guineas, Max must overcome the previous evening's disaster and provide the new American sponsors of the year's first classic race... Show more
Dead Cert Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 5/5 For millionaire jockey Alan York, winning is a bonus. For Joe Nantwich, victory means no cushy backhanders; and for Bill Davidson, front running on strongly fancied Admiral, triumph is an imposter. It means murder - his own. Turning private detective, York uses Joe's underworld connections to go on the trail of the killers - only to draw a series of blanks. But when ambushed by a gang of viscious thugs, he picks up some clues along with his cuts and bruises. Bill's murder begings to make more sense. Until York finds himself in hospital, without a memory. Show more
Bonecrack Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 2.5/5 This thriller, set in Newmarket, centres around Neil Griffon who is abducted by two ruthless men. When he is set free he is the victim of vicious threats, weird extortion, and a... Show more
Blood Sport Series: Unknown Year: Unknown Raiting: 4/5 Gene Hawkings must travel to Kentucky, on the orders of his boss, to spend three weeks looking for kidnapped stallions. But before he leaves, Gene's survival skills are called on closer to home, catapulting him into a maelstrom of... Show more
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Dick Francis was a master of the first line, the first paragraph, the first page. Once read, they hooked you immediately. Nothing would keep you from wanting to find out what happened next.
Take the opening of Straight (1989):
“I inherited my brother’s life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother’s life, and it nearly killed me.”
So much packed into three sentences. First, note the rule of three: inherited…inherited…inherited. Short-long-short-boom. How did his brother die? Were his enemies responsible? What was his business? His “gadgets”? Wait, inherited his mistress? Nearly killed him? You’ve got to find out, don’t you?
“I had told my drivers never on any account to pick up a hitchhiker, but of course one day they did, and by the time they reached my house, he was dead.” (Driving Force, 1992)
“Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon. However, three in a single afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than an eyebrow.” (Under Orders, 2006)
“I intensely disliked my father’s fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.” (Hot Money, 1987)
“I was never particularly keen on my job before the day I got shot and nearly lost it, along with my life. But the .38 slug of lead that made a pepper shaker out of my intestines left me with fire in my belly in more ways than one.” (Odds Against, 1995)
“Fire in the belly” is an apt term for all of Francis’s heroes—maybe not at first, but once their sense of injustice is aroused, they are driven. Most of them are ordinary blokes with a keen morality and, once spurred, they prove to be more courageous and resourceful than they—or their enemies—had thought themselves to be. They’re often a bit damaged—physically, mentally, or both—stalwart yet sensitive men in the 30s, who come from dysfunctional families and are often single—divorced, widowed, in love with someone inappropriate (a relative, a friend’s wife) and thus unable to act on it—and if he’s married, it might be to someone with a debilitating condition that makes physical intimacy impossible. Francis never made it easy for his heroes (though sometimes he let them meet someone romantically suitable by the end of the book).
The heroes were almost always different—Francis repeated only two characters during all of his 40 books from 1962 to 2006—jockey Kit Fielding, who appeared in two books, and jockey-turned-investigator Sid Halley, who appeared in three (plus one written by Francis’s son, Felix). Halley is a true exemplar of a Francis hero, a man intelligent and principled, with a hand terribly injured in a racing accident, the sight of it enough to make new acquaintances gasp, who finds bravery and his true calling in the midst of a storm of adversity. More about him later.
The Francis heroes were often, of course, part of the horse-racing world, but not always jockeys. They were trainers, breeders, stud farm owners, stable owners, racing reporters, horse transporters, and bookmakers. They were also pilots (Flying Finish, 1966; Rat Race, 1970), actors (Smokescreen, 1972), artists (In the Frame, 1976; To the Hilt, 1996), accountants (Risk, 1977), teachers (Twice Shy, 1981), diplomats (Comeback, 1991), bankers (Banker, 1982), kidnapping experts (The Danger, 1983), wine merchants (Proof, 1984), architects (Decider, 1993), filmmakers (Wild Horses, 1994), and glass-blowers {Shattered, 2000)—but always in some fashion drawn into a mystery or crisis related to racing or horses.
Because that was where Francis’s heart was. Here, for instance, is his hero, William Derry, in Twice Shy:
“I loved the Heath in the early mornings with the manes blowing under the wide skies. My affection for horses was so deep and went back so far that I couldn’t imagine life without them. They were a friendly foreign nation living in our land, letting their human neighbors tend them and feed them, accepting them as servants as much as masters. Fast, fascinating, essentially untamed, they were my landscape, my old shoes, the place to where my heart returned.”
And here is jockey Rob Finn in Nerve (1964):
“Give me a horse and a race to ride it in, and I don’t care if I wear silks or…or…pajamas. I don’t care if anyone’s watching or not. I don’t care if I don’t earn enough money or if I break my bones, or if I have to starve to keep my weight down. All I care about is racing…racing…and winning, if I can.”
Francis knew about all of that personally. His grandfather, great-uncle, and father had all been jockeys, and Dick and his brother learned to ride before they could read. In fact, to his mother’s chagrin, his father sometimes let him skip school to ride—“What he can’t learn on the back of a horse is not worth teaching”—and Francis left school at 15 to work in stables. World War II intervened, and he became a pilot in the RAF, but as soon as that was over, he became a steeplechase trainer’s assistant and amateur jockey, then turned professional, and in 1953, became first jockey for the Queen Mother herself. For four years, he was on top of the world—he won 350 races in total and was the Champion National Hunt Jockey in 1953-54—but it is for one race in particular that he has been remembered.
In March 1956, he rode the Queen Mother’s horse, Devon Loch, in one of the world’s great races, the Grand National. He had cleared all the fences and was well ahead of the field, less than 50 yards from the finish line, the crowd roaring because it would be the first royal win in the National since 1900, when suddenly Devon Loch pricked up his ears—and collapsed, his legs spread-eagled on the ground. He got up again and trotted off, but it was way too late.
“I went to the weighing room, took off my silks and sat there with my head in my hands,” said Francis. “It was hell.” The Queen Mother was nice about it—she said, “Oh, that’s racing”—but like Francis, she lived with the disappointment the rest of her life.
What caused the collapse? Nobody knows, though there were many theories, some of them sensible—a cramp, a blood clot, a reflection—and some positively daffy—a Soviet plot, a massive fart (!). Francis himself always thought it was the unusually high volume of crowd noise.
He continued racing, but the sport had taken a toll on him: “I’ve had a fractured skull, six broken collarbones, five broken noses, no end of ribs. Well, you simply stop countin’.” After a particularly bad fall in 1957, which injured his spleen, an advisor to the Queen Mother took him aside and said, “Listen, I’m going to tell you something now. You’re at the top of the tree, you’re leading the jockey’s table, why don’t you get out now? The Queen Mother doesn’t want you to ride her novice chasers any more.”
“It was a terrible thing to say to me at the time,” said Francis. “I nearly threw myself in the Serpentine on the way back through Hyde Park. But I was 36 and I knew I wasn’t bouncing as well as I had in the past.” He retired.
He was already halfway through his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) and he signed on to be a racing correspondent for the Sunday Express, but he needed to find a more lucrative way to earn his living. Then his wife, Mary, said, “We’ve got two sons to educate, the car’s beginning to knock and the carpets are wearing out. You should write a novel.”
“The mingled smell of hot horse and cold river mist filled my nostrils. I could hear only the swish and thud of galloping hooves and the occasional sharp click of horseshoes striking against each other.”
An amateur jockey named Alan York sees his friend die in a fall and discovers a wire stretched across the course. Was it to stop the horse or kill the jockey? He digs around and uncovers a brutal extortion racket—one that very nearly costs him his own life.
All the ingredients were there: the resourceful hero called to action; the psychopathic criminal; the spare, taut, exciting prose that moved the story right along; the clear, often wry, dialogue that never rang false; the pulse-pounding action scenes.
The villains were always awful, and you often knew who they were right from the start. They were ruthless, cruel, and capable of doing whatever it took to succeed with their plans. Other times, they were immensely charming, good-looking, quite likable actually—until the mask fell and the real man was revealed.
The women, interestingly enough, were often very substantial. They were straightforward, intelligent, highly capable in their professions, and didn’t need men to tell them they were good—they knew it. They were doctors, trainers, police constables, journalists, musicians, scientists, professors. Occasionally, they were also love interests for our heroes, but they were never lesser characters in any way—they were allies and colleagues, and valuable precisely because they were so strong. It’s always been one of the reasons Francis’s novels have had great appeal to women readers—that, and those poor, sensitive, broken-but-resilient heroes, of course.
The other hallmark of a Francis thriller was always his extraordinary set pieces. His heroes went through dreadful physical and emotional trials, especially in the earlier books, where the scenes were positively arias of struggle and survival.
A jockey is hung from a hook in an abandoned stable on a freezing night, doused with buckets of cold water, and left to die or be crippled (Nerve). A man is handcuffed to a car steering wheel in the desert and left to die of heat and dehydration—but wait! He’s an actor in a movie called Man in a Car, so that’s all right…until he finds himself in the exact same situation for real from a man who has seen his movie (Smokescreen, 1972). A racing reporter, his wife polio-paralyzed in a respirator, is beaten badly, poured full of alcohol, and must rescue her by disconnecting her respirator, moving her to a van, and driving dead-drunk to what he hopes is safety, while the clock ticks on a very, very short window of time for her survival (Forfeit, 1968). A jockey passes out from carbon monoxide, due to someone’s fiddling with his engine, and wakes up to his car astride a railroad track about to be broadsided by a train going 80 miles per hour (Enquiry, 1969).
And there’s plenty more where that came from. One of my favorite paragraphs, stark in its directness and simplicity and typical of his clear, clean prose, comes from Wild Horses:
“I felt a thud as if someone had cannoned into me, a knock hard enough to send me stumbling forward onto one knee and from there overbalancing to the ground. I fell onto my right side and felt the first pain, sharp and alarming, and I understood with searing clarity that I had a knife blade in my body and that I had fallen onto its hilt, and driven it in further.”
You can’t write much better than that. In all the books, Francis was ably assisted by his wife Mary, and here’s where we might as well address the question of who did what. Francis had always credited Mary as his true partner in the books. “Mary and I worked as a team,” he told an interviewer. “I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary’s family called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together.”
There’s never been any question that Mary was integral to the novels. She did much of the research, for one thing. For In the Frame, she learned to paint. For Flying Finish, she learned to fly a plane, wrote a book about flying, then started an air taxi service, which she ran for seven years. For Reflex, she became such an accomplished photographer that she was asked to take a picture of the Queen Mother for a book dust jacket.
When an unauthorized biography claimed that she actually did the writing, though, he put his foot down. “No. I do all the stories. I write them out in longhand. She then reads and edits them, because she can manage my handwriting.” She also discussed plot and character with him. “She’s my only editor, really.”
He often offered to put her name on the books as co-author, but she always declined. “I always say ‘we’ because I couldn’t do the books without Mary,” he said. “I wish Mary would let me put ‘By Dick and Mary Francis’ on the books.” However, he said at another time, “She wouldn’t have that. She argued that it was my name that would sell the books.”
An indication of how much they collaborated, perhaps, is that after Mary died in 2000, Francis announced that he would write no more books. Six years later, though, his son Felix picked up Mary’s mantle. The book the two men produced together was Under Orders (2006), a Sid Halley novel, with Dick’s name on the cover as usual. The next year, however, with Dead Heat (2007), both names were credited as authors, Dick finally getting his way as he hadn’t with Mary. The next three books were likewise co-bylined. When Dick Francis died, Felix continu
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