A good book to end my Francis obsession with - the final Sid Halley book that he wrote himself and it was better then the previous 2. Sid is older and wiser, feeling more comfortable with his mechanical hand and fretting about it less. He has a real girlfriend, Marina, who he eventually marries by the end of the book. And his ex-wife, Jenny, has finally mellowed out and is not so nasty to Sid. So all in all, the things that annoyed me about the previous books in this series have been mitigated. And the mystery was a good one. Sid is at the track on a bad day, two horses and one jockey, Hugh Walker, end up dead. Walker had left Sid 2 messages begging for his help that Sid had not received until after he was shot to death. It appears that Walker had gotten himself involved in a race fixing scandal that had turned into death threats if he didn't keep up his end of the bargain. Everyone assumed that the fight that Walker had with his trainer, Bill, after the first race was over the fixing scandal but in reality it was because Bill just found out that Walker had been having an affair with his wife. Bill is immediately arrested for Walker's murder and for fixing races but is let out on bail. The next day he is dead from an apparent suicide, using the same gun that killed Walker. The police think that it is an open and shut case but Sid thinks that Bill was murdered. He knows that he is one the right track when Marina is mugged on the way home from work and is told to get her boyfriend to back off. But Sid keeps at it and finds, as is usual for this series, that other cases he is investigating overlap with the murder case. He has been asked to look into the new online gambling sites and he finds that the owner of one of the sites has a close relationship with Bill's assistant trainer, Jillian. He was also asked by an owner, Lord Enstone, to look into his horses, trained by Bill, that seem to be losing with some regular pattern. Eventually, after Marina is shot to get Sid to stop investigating, Sid sets a trap for the killer. He gets Jillian to confess that she was fixing the races for her boyfriend, Lord Enstone's son Peter, and that he killed Walker when he wouldn't go along with the scheme. He also killed Bill to make the police believe that he committed suicide over a guilty conscience and get them to stop investigating. Apparently Peter, who is also a jockey, had a dual reason to fix the races - it gave him a chance to win the race himself and it also allowed him to humiliate his father, who he hated. Of course, as in all Sid Halley books, he foolishly lets himself get trapped by the killer, who inevitably threatens his good hand, and he manages to get free after outsmarting the killer with his fake hand. I'm glad that I was able to finish the series on a high. I do not consider the books written by his son to qualify as true Francis books.

Was so crap and boring! What sad bastard wants to read but crime over a fucking horse race! Dick Francis NEVER AGAIN!

Fast schon altmodisch wirkt die so nette gute Haltung von Sid. Aufrecht ehrbar und verlässlich. Ein Kämpfer für das Gute/ Richtige.
Das Buch wirkt wie eine Wärmflasche in ungemütlichen Zeiten. Mehr davon!!

It's been awhile since I've read a Dick Francis novel and Under Orders included everything that I've always loved about his writing. Sid Halley is a great "hero" though not in the usual sense of the term. Solid, smart and with a fair amount of "guts", he works methodically through his cases. The fact that he's a former jockey - former because of a life changing injury - brings an insight to the world of horse racing that other detectives wouldn't have. Of course, this insight is brought about by the fact that Francis himself was a steeplechase jockey. This novel also introduced me to the world of online betting and what an eye-opener that was! A good read for me with lots of deducting and something new to be learned.

Just what I needed - a reliable, entertaining, read with a fast pace and familiar characters.

I hadn't realized there was a fourth book featuring Sid Halley - when I discovered it, of course I had to read it. Not my favorite of the series, but I did enjoy the way it rounded out Sid's journey. I think that the author's son has picked up the character for further adventures, but this is a good ending place for me.

I haven't read any of Francis' books for a long time, but decided I needed to reconnect and appreciate the forthright presentation and knowledge of the racing scene. I shall have to find the ones his son has written to continue the racing venue crime novels.

It's been a while since I last read a Dick Francis novel and I had forgotten just what a great crime writer he is. This is a fast moving thriller, set in the world of horse racing, as is his niche. It is well written, a good story/mystery, with strong and well defined characters and a very likeable hero in Sid Halley. Thoroughly enjoyable read, not much more to say.

I thought I had read all of Dick Francis' racing based novels when I came across Under Orders. Not only was it written by Francis himself, unlike the posthumous tales commissioned by his estate or the ones he later coauthored with his son Felix, but it also featured my favorite Francis character, maimed
steeplechase jockey Sid Halley.
Unfortunately, Under Orders did not live up to my expectations. It was entertaining enough but somehow fell flat. Checking the date, 2006, I noticed it was written soon after the death of Francis' wife Joan, the woman more than a few Francis fans credit with being his unnamed collaborator. I prefer to think that Dick was still grieving for her loss. Especially since I can recall some later Francis novels that were better than this one.
That said, this book is still a Sid Halley book written by Dick Francis!

Over a career that spanned forty-four years, from 1962 to 2006, Dick Francis wrote forty novels as a solo author and four of them featured Sid Halley, a former jockey who had become a private investigator. This is the last of the forty novels and the last to feature Sid Halley, which is, I think, an appropriate way for both Sid Halley and his creator to bow out.

For those who haven't made his acquaintance, Halley was a champion jockey until he had a horrendous racing accident that cost him is left hand. He was fitted with a prosthetic, but obviously his racing career was over. Halley found a second career as a private investigator and established a reputation as a tough, honest, intelligent operator. The cases he takes often involve the world of horseracing.

Such is the case here. A British lord named Enstone is concerned that his horses seem to be underperforming, losing races that they should be winning. He asks Halley to investigate to see if, for some reason, someone is causing them to lose. At the same time, Halley accepts another case in which he is asked to investigate the relatively new business of on-line betting as it affects the horse racing industry.

Halley barely gets started with the investigation before a jockey who often rides for Lord Enstone is shot to death at a racecourse. The police fairly quickly settle on a suspect that Halley believes to be innocent and so he turns his attention to the murder as well. As things progress, they get increasingly complicated and increasingly dangerous, not just for Sid Halley but for those he cares most about.

This is an interesting novel for a couple of reasons. Halley, who has long been divorced, is in a new relationship with a woman named Marina, and she looks like she might finally be the one for Halley. Their relationship is a key part of the novel. Additionally, the book relies heavily on DNA evidence, which was still in its infancy when this book was written. Apparently the police in Britain are not using it in any significant way yet, but fortunately, Marina works in a lab where the new techniques are being used for other purposes and so Halley is able to rely on the lab for help in investigating the case. There's plenty of action in the novel and a lot of twists and turns. If I were to make any complaint about the book, it would be that the villain of the piece does not measure up to the standard that Francis set in so many of his earlier books, and doesn't really seem to be an opponent worthy of Sid Halley.

Under Orders is certainly not the best of the Francis novels, but it's still a pretty good book to go out on, and this, then, completes my assignment of reading and reviewing all of the Dick Francis novels. Francis would go on to write a couple of other books in concert with his son, Felix, and Felix Francis has now taken over the franchise. For a variety of reasons, I have no interest in reading books in a series that I have thoroughly enjoyed when the original author dies or passes the baton to someone else. The sole exception to this rule is that of Ace Atkins who has taken over Robert B. Parker's Spenser series and who is doing an excellent job with it.

Given that, I have not and will not be reading any "Dick Francis" novels written by anyone else, his son included. The forty novels written by Francis himself, with the assistance of his wife Mary who was his principal researcher, are more than sufficient as far as I'm concerned.

I enjoy all Dick Francis's novels, even though I'm not a horse racing fan (they all revolve around the track in some way). The private investigator is a former jockey who gets called upon to solve mysteries in the racing world. A jockey is found shot immediately after a race; a trainer is suspected, but the trainer is dead a few days later, apparently a suicide, although the PI doesn't think so. Race fixing is also suspected. I must say, the novels don't speak well for the capabilities of the British police force.

Good read! Horse racing is involved along with online betting. Some parts I skimmed over, not really understanding nor caring. Lots of action! A quarantine read that I borrowed from my mom's extensive library.