Excellent story with very interesting backdrop of glass blowing, confusion over videos and who thinks what information is contained on them. Good slant on who is 'good and who is 'bad' and how the world's views on that isn't always right.

This was Dick Francis' last novel...and if you want to know about glassblowing and something about horse racing, this is the book for you. A little bit difficult to follow, but generally a good read.

Boring. Didn't engage with any of the characters.

I love the Dick Francis books and I believe this was the last one written fully by Dick, and some of the "hip language" used by the characters seems a bit dated and a bit hard to follow at first for the dawn of the new millennium when it was set. A rare slip by the master, whose books usually seem timeless. It's still a good read and involves a glassblower who gets caught up in the theft of a mysterious videotape reputed to be worth millions, although our hero has no idea what is on it. Neither does the reader as the unraveling of the mystery is many layers deep and keeps you wondering until the end.

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.

Normally I love mysteries. However, this one was sort of flat. It could be that I'm going through a phase, the editors of Reader's Digest did a poor job of shortening it, or that it really wasn't that good for me.

In this story, a glassblower is given a mysterious package post-mortem of his dead friend. Following this, his place is robbed and the package stolen. Although this glassblower doesn't know what was on the tape, who stole it, etc., he's finding he gets tailed and beaten for information regarding the tape. Thus, the fearless glassblower goes about trying to find answers.

All in all, it doesn't sound like it would have been a bad thing. I couldn't get into the characters, thus it wasn't that great of a story to me. I partially think this is due to the shortening of the book to fit into a RD condensed version. The rest is probably just a minor phase, and I should give mystery books (and condensed books) a break for a while.

The ending just fell apart—didn’t make sense.

Another great book by Dick Francis, characters and storyline good.

I managed to get myself stuck in a hotel room without my three bags of vintage mysteries that I'm working my way through, so I went in the hotel lounge and picked up the only mystery on the shelf.

Bummer about that. This is yet another of the "New York Times Best Sellers" that's cheap crapola cranked out to a formula so the author can live "in the Caribbean."

You know what you're telling us by calling crap like this "best sellers," New York Times? That you wouldn't know a good book if it poked you with a glassblower's punty.

After the disappointment of "Second Wind", initial impressions of "Shattered" were positive. Unfortunately, as the book progressed it became increasingly clear that Francis and his publishers were happy to publish any old nonsense, safe in the knowledge that the quality of earlier books would guarantee sales.

There are simply too many aspects of the storyline that simply beggar belief. There are too many characters whose actions make no sense in the context of the storyline and who, in any case, are not very believable. It is all so contrived and ends in farce when the villains finally get their inevitable comeuppance.

the last part of this book played a big part in ruining it for me. i felt like the mystery was one element too complicated for it to just seem utterly unimportant at the end. i didn't love the way many of the female characters were written, and it sometimes felt like an author self-insert, if only because the narrator seemingly has no flaws at all. i enjoyed the descriptions of glass blowing and some of the high stakes situations. also just the last page and a half was so odd! the alice in wonderland house???? i said wtf out loud reading that, also this man acting like he had any sort of relation to paul when theyve never even met fr

I use to read Dick Francis when I was young and stopped. Finding this one on a nursing home bookshelf I started it to kill some time and I was hooked. Absolutely brilliant, fast paced and some wonderful characters. Pure English gentleman. I have renewed my love.