So many characters, lots of action on the race course and a chase over land with a horse and rider chased by a fleet of taxi's, a little difficult to picture all the action unless you're a steeplechase jocky, but an exciting book and I didn't figure out the villan until he was revealed. This is the Dick Francis writing I remembered from years ago. The plot starts with a great jocky and his great horse falling, then his friend/jocky Alan York hunts down the person responsible for the wire strung up that tripped his horse. Lots about jockys, about the course of a jumping race and a fleet of taxi's and a mafia type organization behind all the violence. Good read! This was written in 1962 in Francis' early career and I find it to be one of his best books. I wish he would leave out the too sweet romance, but guess Francis thought his readers needed a romance to keep them reading to see how all turned out.

The great thing about crime fiction is the wide variety of milieux that the reader can become temporarily immersed in. In one book, you’re on the case with an uxorious French policeman on a steamy summer night in Paris. In another, you’re with a principled young rabbi in suburban Massachusetts. In still another, you’re on the trail of a crook with a bolshie, idiosyncratic Dutchman on the streets of Amsterdam. In the case of this book, you’re in the company of a talented amateur jockey from Rhodesia, on the National Hunt racing circuit.

My reading in crime fiction is pretty broad. Some people prefer the hard boiled stuff. Some stick to Scandi. Others revel in the Golden Age. I’ll read crime fiction from any time and place, so long as the book itself is engaging. Of all the writers of varying types that I have sampled over the years in crime fiction, I would place Dick Francis (or “Dick Francis”, or Dick & Mary Francis, or Mary Francis, depending on your school of thought) right up towards the top of the pyramid.

This is the very first Dick Francis novel. It is remarkably assured, and contains most of the hallmarks of the subsequent body of work. There are the very engaging descriptions of horse races. There is the self-effacing but brave and perspicacious hero, the neatly drawn love story, the well researched and intelligently depicted scenes based around the non-racing business world. The scene-setting and atmospheric stuff is wonderful, from the brilliant opening paragraph on. The book also showcases another trait that characterises the Francis books - a kind of authorial canniness that really adds to the richness of the storytelling. It’s a canny choice, for example, to have the hero coming from independent wealth, both for the way that it keeps him out of the shenanigans engaged in by some of the other jockeys, and for the way that it feeds into the love story. It is a canny choice to take the time to carefully delineate the character and abilities of several different racehorses, both for the way that it takes us into the world of horse racing, and for the way that the different horses subsequently act as de facto characters in the plot. This kind of authorial shrewdness, which pays out at different points in the story, is something that always strikes me when I read Dick Francis.

In short - a cleverly thought out, well written, absorbing thriller - the first in a long line of richly rewarding works. If you have never tried Dick Francis, do yourself a favour.

What is there to say about Dick Francis? As I think about all of his books (yes, this review covers all of his books, and yes I've read them all) I think about a moral ethical hero, steeped in intelligence and goodness embroiled in evil machinations within British horse racing society - either directly or indirectly. The heroes aren't always horse jockies, they can be film producers, or involve heroes engaged in peripheral professions that somehow always touch the horse racing world.

But more than that, Francis's heroes are rational human beings. The choices made are rational choices directed by a firm objective philosophy that belies all of Francis's novels. The dialogue is clear and touched with humor no matter the intensity of evil that the hero faces. The hero's thoughts reveal a vulnerability that is touching, while his actions are always based on doing the right thing to achieve justice.

Causing the reader to deeply care about the characters in a novel is a difficult thing to do. No such worries in a Francis novel. The point of view is first person, you are the main character as you read the story (usually the character of Mr. Douglas). The hero is personable, like able, non-violent but delivering swift justice with his mind rather than through physical means. This is not to say that violence is a stranger to our hero. Some of it staggering and often delivered by what we would think of normal persons living in British society.

You will come to love the world of Steeple Chase racing, you will grow a fondness for horses, stables, trainers and the people who live in that world. You will read the books, devouring one after the other and trust me Dick Francis has a lot of novels (over 40 by my last count).

There are several series woven into the fabric of Francis's work: notably the Sid Halley and Kit Fielding series.

Assessment: Dick Francis is one of my favorite writers. I read his books with a fierce hunger that remains insatiable and I mourn his death.

Another interesting mystery involving horses.

Dick Francis' first novel.

I came to Dick Francis late but am thrilled to be catching up. This early novel is a pip, as gentleman jockey Alan York tries to uncover who caused his best friend's horse to trip over a wire and kill the rider accidentally. His nosiness leads him to a race-fixing ring and threatens his life as well.

I adore Francis' books. And I enjoyed this one. But I really didn't like the ending--I mean, it was good for the plot, but I really didn't think the main character, Alan, should end up with who he did. It felt wrong. Otherwise, I would have given this 4 stars. A good story, as usual, but I felt the romanc was a bit contrived.

I read this because one of the Penguin 60 books (Racing Classics) I read recently contained, instead of a short story, the first chapter of this book. It was a very well written first chapter, which built suspense and set up a great story. I was pretty annoyed at that, and had whetted my appetite to finish the novel, which I picked up for a couple of dollars a few days later.

Dick Francis is a former steeple-chase jockey, so is writing well within his sphere of knowledge, and that comes across in this book. To a person with little knowledge in the racing industry, and less interest, it reads as a technically correct book.

The story involves a number of steeple-chase race 'accidents', which of course are not accidents at all, and I would expect that without the technical precision of the writing, a book like this would fail to convince. Also wrapped in are organist crime in the form of race fixing, bet fixing and general intimidation tactics.

I enjoyed it for what it is - a fast paced murder mystery thriller, where the main character is cleverer that the police and all others. I don't read a lot of these types of books, probably one or two a year usually, so this one sits ok with me.

Three and a half stars, rounded down to 3.

Dick Francis knows how to start a novel with a bang—in this case the murder of Alan York’s best friend in the middle of a steeplechase. It didn’t look like murder, but York sees more than he’s supposed to and sets himself on a path to find out who killed his friend—a decision that almost results in his own death.

The mystery is a good one and there are several tense actions scenes both on and off the track, but for me the standout element of the book was Alan York. I would have liked to have learned a lot more about him—his past growing up in Africa and the teacher who helped form so much of his character. The love interest in this one never worked for me, but they are rarely the strong point of Dick Francis novels. In this case, he did a little more poorly than usual with what I thought was a wholly unbelievable ending to that particular subplot. Fortunately, that’s not enough to derail this story of murder at the races.

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Two stars is probably harsh on the plot which, as the first one, is quite clever and well thought out. The usual clichés of the Dick Francis thriller are here, although at this point they are maybe gestational. One thing really missing here is our hero battling against a huge physical punishment to the degree later books like to have it.

However, Penguin have in my view really slipped up by leaving the N-word in the text. If it were used directly by a character as an expression of their character in the context of race being significant to the plot I might accept it. But in this case a character casually uses the 'in the woodpile' phrase (yes this book is 60 years old). Anyway it was hugely jarring to stumble upon it near the end of the book and I don't think it does anyone favours to leave it in.

I know this book from many years back as a teen when I used to regularly check out the unabridged audio version and honestly I don't ever remember hearing that. Possibly a 1980s audio version was more forward thinking than the publisher (or my mind is failing me over 30 years later which is also possible).

I last read this book in 2001, twenty years ago, and shortly after the 9/11 attack. I hadn't read any Dick Francis in a while, and it was like running into an old friend. There is a certain lighthearted good will about Francis that makes him a pleasure to read. There are grim things going on. People die. Perhaps it is the self-confidence, the assurance that things will turn out right, that a jockey must have that enables Francis to write characters who face adversity with a grin.

Alan York, amateur steeplechase jockey, is a thoroughly likable character. He is also a clever sleuth. Trying to understand a friend's death in a riding "accident," York uncovers a massive criminal conspiracy.

There is clever detective writing here, and a rather nice love story. Like so many of Francis' books there is a vivid portrait of the racing world. The main thing is that this is a highly enjoyable read.

After some Jane Smiley, I wanted more horses. It's been decades since I've read Dick Francis. I truly have no idea whether I've read this one before, but it scratched that itch.