Sid Halley #1-3

Win, Place, and Show

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A hard fall took hotshot jockey Sid Halley out of the horse racing game, leaving him with a crippled hand, a broken heart, and a desperate need for a new job. In Odds Against, he lands a position with a detective agency. His first case brings him up against a field of thoroughbred criminals, and the odds against him are making it a long shot that he'll even survive.

Whip Hand finds Halley haunted by his glory days, although he still finds a certain satisfaction in solving a case. Hired by the wife of one of England's top racehorse trainers, Halley needs to figure out why her husband's most promising horses have been performing so poorly, and winds up haunted by more than just memories.

In Come to Grief, Halley becomes convinced that one of his closest friends-and one of the racing world's most beloved figures--is behind a series of shockingly violent acts. No one wants to believe that Ellis Quint could be guilty, so the public and press are turning their wrath against Halley instead. Now he's facing opposition at every turn-and finding danger lies straight ahead.

656 pages, Paperback

First published September 20,2002

Series

About the author

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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

Community Reviews

Rating(4.3 / 5.0, 3 votes)
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3 reviews All reviews
April 26,2025
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Had read these before & computer was in hospital, hence 3 in one day, always find Dick Francis easy but compelling reading, (even when I know 'who dun it' in advance.
April 26,2025
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4 Stars

Win, Place, or Show by Dick Francis is made up of three stories in one...
-Odds Against
-Whip Hand
-Come to Grief
Another engrossing collection of crime & investigation mysteries woven with danger, drama, suspense, tension, and intrigue.
->2023 Reading Challenge.
->Glennie's Collection
Dick Francis novels were a familiar fixture in our household when I was growing up, as both my parents loved his books. He was amongst the first ‘adult’ reads that I explored at the time, and over the years I have read everything he’s written. I remember every time my mother read one of his books, she'd tell me about him and how he'd gone from being an RAF pilot to being the Queen Mother's favourite jockey, before retiring to become a journalist/writer.
Since my mother passed away over a year ago, I have been making my way through her book collection, finally. I decided to make reading her entire collection a part of my reading challenge for the next couple of years (she has a HUGE collection), as well as a way to pay tribute to my mum, who was such a voracious reader..... Reading her collection of books has stirred up a lot of memories, mostly of our shared love of reading. I am forever grateful that she passed on her love of reading to me.
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