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Daniel Roke, Australian who established a stud farm to raise orphaned siblings, accepts undercover stable lad job from the Earl of October, investigating steeplechase doping in England. At least ten horses win adrenalin-high stimulated, but regular lab tests show nothing. Gorgeous October daughters distract, detract, and fatally endanger. Tension builds into an explosive fight to the death.

292 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1965

This edition

Format
292 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
February 3, 2004 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN
9780425194980
ASIN
0425194981
Language
English

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About the author

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dick francis

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Dick Francis, CBE, FRSL (born Richard Stanley Francis) was a popular British horse racing crime writer and retired jockey.

Dick Francis worked on his books with his wife, Mary, before her death. Dick considered his wife to be his co-writer - as he is quoted in the book, "The Dick Francis Companion", released in 2003:
"Mary and I worked as a team. ... I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary's family always 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."

Praise for Dick Francis: 'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror '

Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph '

Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National.

On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott.

During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.

Series:
* Sid Halley Mystery
* Kit Fielding Mystery

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
40(40%)
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29(29%)
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100 reviews All reviews
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HeyHarp
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I first read this at 13 (the first Francis book I'd ever read), and at that point, fell in love with Francis books. I went through his complete (at that time, at least) library in about a month. My education suffered, but my knowledge of things covered in these books has remained with me ever since!
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cakefluff
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I was glad to discover this one is as good as I remembered, a nice simple but tense little thriller. While the bad guys get revealed early on, the precise method they use to make the horses win on demand is not and it's nicely held back as an impressive reveal.

Daniel Roke is a great character to be with. My chief memory of the audiobook version I heard first is of Tony Britton putting on an Australian accent for the whole of the narration, which still seems an impressive piece of work. Roke is relentlessly positive and chivalrous but never stupid, so we are never wondering at a foolish mistake he's made.

1965 is also another world in Britain. Of course, Francis's view may not be the real truth but certainly he's laced this book with the class divide, Lord October and his fellow Stewards showing they genuinely believe stable lads likely incapable of critical thinking due to their working class roots, and the very tame (by today's standards) methods used to make Roke seem like a thug. It does strike a slightly odd note since I feel like a number of his heroes have worked as stable lads, and Chico, Sid Halley's sidekick, is very much a sharp and clever example of a working class man. That said, it never felt like Francis himself was endorsing this, but Roke certainly doesn't contradict Lord October's views. There's even, maybe, a sense of the book asking us not to judge people by how they look but who knows.

Overall a nice slice of 1965 England alongside a mystery that is cleverly setup, even if it's hard to know if that level of monetary return would really be worth the work. And really, one hopes to god Francis never really found a stable that treated their lads so poorly.
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jXcileJ
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Daniel Roke is an Australian who has an established stud farm. He is presented with a chance to work undercover as a stable boy in England to figure out how horses are being doped and undetected. He is not exactly happy with his current lot, so he does it. He must transform himself into a shady character and work at brutal stable whose owner isn't above beating the workers. This was a good one. No language.
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heyitsolive
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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An early novel from Dick Francis, this was a quick and easy read. Told in Fancis’s fairly flat, no-nonsense style, the first person narrative engages early and, despite a few plot holes, is fairly believable. The mid-1960s setting does date it quite a bit, but the central theme of horses being ‘doped’ to win and the main character having to go under cover as a stable lad, was well thought through. There was a point when I thought that the action flagged a bit, but don’t let that put you off. For an enjoyable thriller, chose Mr Francis.
© Koplowitz 2012
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Jep914
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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good, solid adition to the Dick Francis catalogue
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dara97
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Daniel Roke is an Australian horse breeder. Orphaned as a teenager, he supports his siblings and is bored to death. When is is offered a job to underground and investigate a racing scandal he takes a chance and discovers the adventure that he craves.
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Riskzz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This was a bit slow moving in the first half, but the second half was pretty good.
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Tsugan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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An interesting horse racing thriller, an undercover expatriate (from Australia) returns to the UK to infiltrate UK horse racing to seek out a conspiracy of race fixers. As ever with Francis, his horse racing work always gives insight into how the British horse racing industry works. 6 out of 12.

2008 read
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