More nefarious Criminals

This time it’s a sportswriter who unearths criminals and is very stoic about being beaten up. Enter the paralyzed wife as a secondary target and throw in an affair for blackmail purposes and the story rocks on from there.

A strong Francis entry, with some more moral ambiguity than in some.

Reporter James Tyrone does not believe that the fatal fall of his colleague Bert Checkov was an accident. As he investigates, he discovers a series of races where hoses were touted for easy wins but then did not race. He must avoid becoming a victim himself.

This is my first Dick Francis mystery,but it won't be my last! I had always shied away from his books since I have absolutely no interest in horse-racing. I only read this because my mystery book group chose it. But I was so pleasantly surprised. He is a wonderful, sensitive writer as well as being a former jockey. Who would have thought?

I've read this book before (a few times, actually), but when I found a first edition in a used bookstore in Nashville over Thanksgiving, I couldn't resist adding it to my collection.

What I enjoyed about this book is that as one of Dick Francis' first books (published in 1969), it doesn't quite have the easy style of his later books, but it strives a bit more for the really good story. The climax of the book is especially good.

Forfeit. (Dick Francis)

A very exciting but a truly love story. This newspaper reporter discovered a criminal plan to threaten owners so they would not run their horses at various races. He wrote an article and then he was in trouble. Typical Dick Francis.

I love all Francis books, but this one a little less than most. Not quite sure why. It was a good story, with some moral dilemma and lots of intrigue. The main character was in lots of danger, but showed spunk and wit. And it wrapped up nicely in the end. Not a bad read, but just not a favorite.

Many Dick Francis novels disappoint in the rereading 50 odd years after publication. As does this book. We’d call it racist now. And sexist. And Ty, the ‘hero’ an unrealistically depicted man... with his wires crossed.
Plus you need to understand the betting system. Mwah....

The issues in this book were more intense than usual. Suicide, murder, blackmail, manslaughter, impossible love story, and more. James Tyrone is a bull dog of a newspaper columnist. He gets an idea about horserace fixing and blackmail, and isn’t going to let the story go until he can expose the blackmailers. He’s unstoppable, no matter how they try to break him down. I admit to being a little frightened by just how bad these guys were. Do they get their comeuppance? What do you think?

They say third time is the charm, but in Dick Francis's case it was fourth time. He had been nominated for the Edgar for Best Novel in each of the three preceding years before finally winning it with FORFEIT in 1970. Getting the last laugh, he went on to win it twice more and became a Grand Master in 1996.

This was the first of his books I have read. I tend to go for series books, am not immediately attracted to thrillers, and follow horseracing only if invited to a Derby Day party, so I hadn't thought I would like them. Now, having read FORFEIT, I'll be much more likely to pick up the next Francis book I see.

FORFEIT's protagonist, James Tyrone, is a journalist -- he writes a racing column for a somewhat sensational newspaper and does occasional free-lance work for magazines. When a colleague from another paper commits suicide, after giving Tyrone a mysterious piece of advice, and Tyrone realizes something odd about horses the dead man has touted in his columns, he begins asking questions. This sets him on a collision course with a sinister South African that imperils not only his own life, but that of his wife. Of course, it also gets his paper a hell of a story.

What little I know about American horseracing was of no use here, as the British system of betting is different and there are also different kinds of races there (pretty exciting ones too, it would seem). But enough was explained (and without recourse to footnotes!) that I was easily able to follow the story.

I read recently that in a thriller, you know fairly soon who the villain is and the excitement is in the race between villain and hero to accomplish or prevent the villain's plans (wildly paraphrasing here). That is a good description of this book. Given the conventions of crime fiction, one is 99% sure that good will win out, but Francis keeps us on the edge with that 1% of uncertainty. There are books you can't put down, and then there are those which I, at least, must put down -- something so frightening happens that I must stop to catch my breath and let my heart rate return to normal. This was such a book.

My husband, who has been reading these Edgar winners along with me, said about Julian Symons' THE PROGRESS OF A CRIME that one mark of a good writer was the care he takes with minor characters. I couldn't see it in that book because I just disliked the whole book so much. But I could really see the truth of it in FORFEIT. The horse trainer, the young woman groom, the jockey, the racing steward, the horse breeder and his family -- each has a story, and we hear it, without detracting at all from the fast-moving plot.

So if, like me, you thought you wouldn't be interested in a book about horseracing, think again and read a Dick Francis book. He's been doing fine without me all these years, the only loss has been mine.

v v good

An enjoyable book featuring a journalist, rather than a jockey. James Tyrone is married to Elizabeth, who suffered from polio just after their wedding and is now bedridden and attached to a ventilator. Her care is expensive and Ty writes for the Blaze but also does freelance work when he can get it. When fellow journalist, Bert, drunkenly tells him to maintain his journalistic integrity and watch out for blackmailers, Ty doesn't think anything of it until Bert ends up dead. As he starts looking into it, he notices that Bert's columns over the past year where he recommends a horse in big races have backed horses other than the favorites who, once the price is driven up, are mysteriously pulled from the races. Ty and his colleagues smell a rat and decide to lay a trap. With an upcoming race, they decide to write an article supporting a particular horse and then hide the horse so that it cannot come to any harm. But of course the bad guys don't like this because if the horse actually runs the race and wins, they will be out a lot of money. So they follow Ty and blackmail him into telling them where the horse is by threatening to turn off Elizabeth's ventilator. They then beat him up and force him to drink so that he'll be in a drunk stupor and unable to stop them from getting at the horse. But he makes himself throw up most of the booze and woozily gets Elizabeth out of the apartment and into the hospital for her own protection before stopping the bad guys. The horse runs the race but only comes in second. Not a bad book but the endless scenes of a drunken Ty fumbling around, trying to do things, got old.