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dick francis

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When reporter Bert Chekov falls to his death, his colleague James Tyrone is suspicious. Chekov's column had recently recommended some 'can't-lose' horses, who then wound up out of the running on race day. Tyrone thinks he can prove it was murder, but he may not live to tell the tale. Because as the dead man has already made clear, there's no such thing as a sure thing.

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1969
Literary awards
edgar award, 

This edition

Format
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
April 5, 2005 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN
9780425201916
ASIN
0425201910
Language
English

More editions

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 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
26(26%)
4 stars
45(45%)
3 stars
28(28%)
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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
F0xhunt
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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"Racing correspondent for a newspaper dedicated to exposing scandals in the noisiest way becomes involved in exposing a racing fraud while dealing with the problems of his marriage to a woman housebound by polio."

The main character is somewhat unlikable.
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Deleb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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My least favorite of all of the Dick Francis books. Boring
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PeeManExclusive
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Just an ok read….always a lot going on in horse racing, but this was a poke at a journalist, writing about horse racing but not focusing as much on the racing as the effects of the racing scandal…I didn’t enjoy this too much
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evocativex
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This installment in the Dick Francis series has more soap opera than many of his stories, focusing as it does on a hero who is married to a woman paralyzed by polio. This nearly intolerable situation forms the core of our hero's life, and is an essential element of the plot -- which I won't give away here.

When I read this book for the first time years ago, it actually impressed a very important principle on me which I still believe in to this day. Specifically, don't let anyone blackmail you (whether financially or emotionally, or for any other pay-off) for any reason. That may sound silly, but in my opinion (and in Francis'), no revelation or embarrassment could be worse than allowing someone to have that kind of power over you. As one character says in the book, don't ever sell your soul....
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Looklook111
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A Disappointment

I never thought I'd dislike a Dick Francis protagonist but this one I did. He was redeemed a bit in the last couple chapters. In the meantime, he got knocked about way too often.
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Nuthicc
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This is a well-written and fast-paced novel narrated by a newspaper sports writer who gets unwillingly involved with a betting scam.
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TheRealGIN
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This is the second Francis novel I've read, and it showed that my enjoyment of Reflex was no fluke. This is a strong suspense novel which, while set in and dependent upon the milieu of horse-racing, does not require much in the way of previous knowledge. I have no real affinity for horses, in any capacity (though I do occasionally exclaim "And I want a pony," but that's beside the point), and I was only occasionally left out by this.
As with many British mystery/suspense novels of the time (published in 1969), the plot here centers on extortion and blackmail. Our lead is a reporter at a weekly paper who covers the ponies and has a bit of a rep as a firebrand. After the death of a colleague, a string of suspicious drop-outs is uncovered. Foul play or coincidence? I'll let you guess...
The plot is nothing ground-breaking, and the characters, though enjoyable, are a bit thin. There are some questionable ethics and gender politics, and the way race is handled, though progressive at the time, seems antiquated if not offensive. Remember, many of these issues stem from the novel being nearly fifty years old.
On the other hand, the prose is clear and modern, the support cast is quite engaging, and the villains are convincing. It is only fitting that a novel about racing should be expertly paced, and that is certainly the case here. In fact, the prose and pacing read so thoroughly modern that the occasional mention of rotary phones or apartheid were jarring.
I must mention that this is not an action novel. There is action, but in sparing doses. Our protagonist is no muscular man-at-arms, nor is he an athlete. He's a reporter, and so must rely on his wits when in over his head. This is how the book shows its age, as most modern suspense novels rely much more on visceral thrills. The villains here are thugs, no terrorists, so don't expect elaborate gunfights.
This was an enjoyable read, one that certainly rewards the curious. I am still too new to the author to judge this book in relation to his canon, but can safely say that, in tone, pacing and attitudes, it holds up much better than many of its contemporaries. It has solidified Francis as, to me, an author worth exploring further.
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