I first read this book around 1980. It was my first Dick Francis book but by no means my last. I just finished re-reading and enjoyed it every bit as much the second time around. Dick Francis is a great storyteller. The chief protagonist in this book is likeable and believable. The mystery itself is an interesting puzzle. The British stables are a fascinating setting.

This was the first Dick Francis mystery I read as a grade-schooler and, 50 years later, it remains one of my favorites. I reread it periodically because I enjoy revisiting the great characters and immersing myself in the British racing scene.

Not quite as entertaining on rereading as it was the first time around, this was still an excellent thriller set in the world of British horse-racing, this time with a successful Australian trainer going undercover as an English stable lad. The British are so class-conscious! I suppose we all are, but the British have their own particular ingrained norms.

The first half of this book is considerably slower than Dick Francis' first two novels, though none-the-less very intriguing. But from that point onward the story gradually becomes more and more intense, eventually reaching a fever pitch.

A slow burning thriller by Dick Francis. Slow to begin with but it kept the attention going.


The novel is about horse racing and bating on horses. When there were some unusual wining became a little too frequent, they wanted to investigate. But nothing is found and moreover the journalist who was investigating the case was found dead by apparent accident . There were spies everywhere in the horse racing community and no one can be trusted. So, the authority engages a former jockey from Australia to investigate.

The prose is nice. The mystery is decent.

The last third of this thriller (Francis’s third) is amazing in how the writer creates different types of suspense. In one scene it’s all conversational as an innocent character walks into a setting of menace and the narrator-hero is trying to get her to leave without alerting the villains (discrepant levels of awareness, in other words); in other scenes it’s more physical or time-related as with a race to prevent a calamity. The book takes a bit to get all the elements in place (as the villains’ scheme is intricate), but after the hero meets the second daughter (chapter 12 of 19), it’s difficult to put the book down.

Another great read in the Dick Francis pantheon! I haven't read this one in quite a while, but the method used for "encouraging" loser-class horses to win races came right back to me, in all its diabolical horror! In fact, it really should come with a trigger alert for those who suffer when animals are mistreated, especially horses. I don't have a very squeamish nature, but I had a hard time with the cruelty described here.
Other than that, it is a fully realized mystery, with a likable hero and an all-too-believable plot!

I liked this book by Dick Francis just not as much as the other one of his that I have read, I still enjoyed all the racing and horse related things in the book. It was well written just lacked something but I don't know what.

A breath taking, fast paced and an attention grabbing book.

1. The book starts with three orphans whose parents died drowning from a sailing accident. The eldest of the lot, Daniel Roke was 18, his two brothers and sisters were still young.

2. To support his siblings Roke ran a stud farm to support siblings. Roke accepted a stable lad job from the Earl of October. The job was to investigate steeplechase droppings. All the siblings were distracted, detached and fatally endangered. Over time this tension builds into a dangerous fight. All of them started arguing for what was best for their brother.

Finally we see,
1. PG rated content (violence)
2. Some mild cursing

Another solid thriller from the Dick Francis stable. Daniel Roke is a successful, but discontented horse breeder in Australia. He takes on a mission to stop some English bad guys from fixing horse races. Daniel puts up with miserable conditions, a degree of brutality, and a considerable amount of risk. He also finds out that the English are way too class-conscious for his taste. He accomplishes his mission, and, at the end, changes his life.

Dick Francis delivers

A wonderfully intelligent and intriguing mystery.
How are these racehorses winning? No drugs found, no special food or liquids either. But someone is doing something to get them to win.
Hopefully hiring this stable owner from Australia to investigate will be the answer.
Dick Francis delivers a fast paced action and mystery thriller.
I couldn't put it down.

My least favourite so far, although it was still fun -- I just didn't find Roke as enjoyable a character as the protagonists of the first two books, and being undercover is, for me, just inherently more stressful and less interesting. A lot of what I like about mysteries is all the detail about daily life surrounding the crime/investigation/resolution, especially because so much of it is more contemporary than other kinds of literature -- it seems like a lot of mystery authors give their characters current cars and clothes and send them to current restaurants, they aren't recollecting anything in tranquillity, they're telling a story and filling out the details with what is already around them. This book definitely had some of that -- (the way everyone treats Roke badly when he's wearing his leather jacket and has sideburns!) but less just because of the nature of the story. Also, I don't find becoming a spy to be a particularly happy ending, which is fine! Not all books have to do what I like! But I felt bad for Roke at the end, that he was going into this dangerous and maybe unnecessary work (because how much of 'being a spy' in ordinary life is about anything real and how much of it is masculinist games? I have no idea but as you can tell, I'm dubious) and this was painted as his happy ending... I absolutely get why, it was the 1960s and it fit with his character as revealed etc, but it wasn't what I wanted for him as a person so this was not as warm and cosy of a read as the first two.

Finally, having read three of these in a row it occurs to me that Francis spends a lot of time showing his male heroes suffering, which I haven't come across in most of the other mysteries I've read, and I wonder why that is? All three of these books had scenes that were beautiful set-ups for some hurt/comfort fanfic.