Philip Nore is a professional jockey and an amateur photographer, and it's the latter interest that gets him into trouble in this novel. Nore was acquainted with George Millace, a very good sports photographer who often frequented the race courses where Nore rode. Millace has recently died in an auto accident and then, to add insult to injury, someone has burglarized and trashed his house while his wife and family were attending his funeral.

There seems no larger significance to these incidents until someone returns to the house and assaults Millace's widow, demanding to know where the safe is. The poor woman has no safe and, as far as she knows, neither did her husband. But it's clear that Millace apparently possessed something that someone considers to be a potential threat. Given his occupation as a photographer, it's not a huge leap to imagine that he might have had photographs that could pose a threat to someone else.

Philip Nore steps in to assist the widow and in the process discovers what appears to be her husband's junk box. It contains some scraps of exposed film and other items that are not immediately identifiable. Curious, Nore begins to experiment with the items in his own darkroom, and once he does, he puts himself directly in the sights of some very dangerous people who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

This is a fairly typical Dick Francis novel and readers of the series will immediately recognize Philip Nore as the prototypical Francis protagonist. It's a good book, although not among Francis's best. In part this is because he spends a great deal of time in the novel describing the technical aspects of what Nore is doing in his darkroom to uncover Millace's secrets. Francis clearly did a lot of research in this respect and was apparently determined to get everything he had learned into the book. The problem is that is slows the pace of the novel, sometimes at crucial points, and the book would have been better if he had dealt with this material more concisely.

An interesting plot. Phillip Noor is a jockey who also takes a lot of pictures of people & scenes around races/jockeys. He stumbles on a box of "jumbles" from a well-respected photographer of races and discovers why the photographer's wife was beat up, the house burgled and burned to the ground. There were a couple of subplots involved, but all tied together nicely. A bit too much technical info about the process of raising photographs from different colors of nothing that detracted from the story a bit for me, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Dick Francis wrote the things he knew well. As a former jockey, stories mostly revolve around the English steeple racing scene. More surprising is his obvious knowledge about photography that becomes central to the story. Reflex is imaginatively done with great characters. Philip Nore, in spite of his efforts to remain detached from life, is caught up in the troubles of his friends and family. The complications continue to lead him into uncomfortable and eventually dangerous situation. The story moves along briskly and is hard to put down.

I just love all of Dick Francis’s books and decided to re-read some (maybe all) of them as I am trying to downsize my library by donating as many as I can bare to give away.

Really two and a half stars. It had alot about film photography and different ways to develop film that was important to the story. However, I thought all that information tended to slow the story down. OK, but not one of his best.

I've read all but one of Dick Francis books. Starting eons ago when I was but a mere kitten, and ending at some point in the 21st century after his wife's death when Francis son Felix started helping his papa write the books. At some point in time I became aware of Dick noting in some interview or another that his books had been co-written affairs - with his wife. And there is a definite difference between those books written prior to the wife's death, during Francis supposed solo writing career, then when Felix stepped in to help (I'm not actually sure if there actually was a middle part there, the solo part I mean). But all of that is beside the point - this is solidly within the time period when the book was a co-writing production utilizing both Dick and Dick's wife's, Mary, writing abilities ("I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together.")

Another little point to note before I move on to the book itself: At some point I noticed, after reading about 90% of the Francis work, that I'd rated all of the books a good solid 4.5 stars without any falling an inch below or above that line. Whereupon I realized I'd fallen into a trap that can open up - I expect a certain rating to appear on what I read, the book was solid enough, so I rated it that rating. After I realized that the ratings for the final 10% of the books rarely reached 4.5 star level. Which I mention because the first time I read this book I rated it 4.5 stars, but I've no clue if I really thought it deserved that rating.

Right, so.... Common theme here. Amateur detective type trying to live his life (here named Philip Nore), is uprooted from his comfortable enough rut to face several mysteries, and several beatings (both by horse and by thugs - Francis seemed to have loved to beat up his characters through both methods).

Here we find Philip Nore, at or slightly above the age of 30. Jockey, kinda of tall to be a jockey, but still, a jockey. He has drifted through life, letting whatever would happen - happen, without much fuss made by him. Driven into that type of personality because of his childhood - of which he had none (or at least not the norm - mother would drop him off with friends for 'a few days', that would last weeks, months, and sometimes years; and he didn't have much in the way of formal school training). He's had some wins on the horse, and some losses - some of these losses were 'forced' losses, but he doesn't really like doing that kind of thing (more bluntly: he's been forced, here or there, to throw races). That throwing races isn't really the main plotline here, though an important issue, just not the source of the mysteries.

Nore works lazily at unraveling two mysteries: 1) the grandmother he never met before wishes for him to hunt down the half-sister he never knew he had - he kind of boredly looks around but doesn't want to help the witch (the grandmother being the witch, not the half-sister); 2) a great, though not exactly much beloved, race photographer has died and left his 'reject' box behind to be inherited by Nore (Nore is/was friends with the man's son; while helping the son he came across said box and asked if he could take it with him - the box was filled with overexposed negatives, and the like - rejects). The second mystery involves examining these 'rejects' and 'fixing them'.

A third mystery develops relatively quickly. Nore likes solving puzzles, and doesn't really think the 'common mistakes' that are in the photographer's box of 'reminders' are anything special, certainly nothing a good photographer would keep as reminders. So he investigates the mistakes and finds that they are actually well concealed photographs and photographs of letters. Of a . . . dark nature. (ETA: Right, sorry, this above paragraph reads like it should be the second mystery, no? Second mystery involves figuring out how to 'fix' the 'ruined' negatives so that images/pictures/letters would appear. Third mystery involves . . . was George a blackmailer?)

Whereupon I note that the book description is rubbish. At least the one for this specific edition (if the others are different, I do not care enough to look). "Longtime jockey Philip Nore suspects that a racetrack photographer's fatal accident was really murder--". No he doesn't. Late in the book someone makes some comment about how George's (I think the photographer's name was George) accident might not have been an accident. Before that Nore suspected nothing about the accident being murder. Nothing. And after the comment he was more 'well . . . huh . . . possibly?' not 'OMG! YES MURDER!'.

Right, so. Nore wanders around riding horses. Takes photos; examines a different photographer's photos; falls into a romance by sheer accident; falls into a possible new career similarly by accident; solves a couple of mysteries.

Of note: Now that I've read the book for a second time I'll note a few things: Rereading this book reminds me that Francis main character in his books tended to be kind of rather depressing types; the 'Dick Francis' team did write some interesting books, but not at a high level like I'd recalled. Oh, and, I'm not sure I noticed the oddly rather okay view of homosexual relationships that is on display in this book (I mean by everyone but for the grandmother). Two of the people who raised Philip is remembered quite fondly by Philip - they were a gay couple; and another gay couple turns up - they seem okay-ish people. Which is interesting when I hadn't recalled Francis including such characters in book and this one is from 1980. (Don't, by the way, go into this book to read happy gay couples because of the words I use above; neither couple is exactly happy - one read like those relationships I read in lesbian pulp from the 1950s/1960s (though here, this book, involving men); while the other relationship was much more 'happy' - but neither relationship was examined in any depth and none of the gay characters have significant roles in the book).

I got side-tracked.

Good enough book. Nothing near what I probably originally rated the book, 4.5, but good enough book.

Rating: 3.5

July 1 2019

As always, Super fun and well-written, albeit formulaic, it is the Francis Formula in all its glory.
What I especially liked: the photographer's puzzles were super cool, the complexity of the minor characters such as the dead photographer, the irascible Trainer and Jeremy the young Solicitor and I liked that the jockey protagonist wasn't as lily white as usual but actually dishonest in some ways (still heroic and likeable as always). The protagonist had been raised virtually without love, but the kindness he did receive he put to good advantage by being a (mostly) decent guy.
In this book, Francis doesn't sugarcoat how hard the Jockey's Life is, and that was a good thing. Hero didn't get the shit kicked out of him until page 272 (in my edition).

I always enjoy reading a good Dick Francis novel. Phillip Nore in this one is a really good character. They are pretty clean, the language isn't too bad, and not a lot of sex.... Sometimes I even reread the books, because it's like being with a friend you haven't seen in several years. I really enjoy the characters he uses, and also enjoy the series he writes about too. I'm not a gambler, but I really enjoy watching them live, as well as on screen. There is a certain excitement that I don't find in many other places.

This is definitely one of Francis's best but still I only felt I could give it four out of five. There wasn't much in the way political (or even 'a man should take risks'/'I'd die in an office') ideology presented so that was nice but there is a fair spattering of his usual overly paternal views of women, and this is part of the 4 stars vs 5.

The relationship stuff is a bit oddly handled and feels somewhat tacked on to what is a very cleverly layered mystery, but there are some bits that just seem too pat in the way things fall out, and the final unravelling just seems almost like a pulled punch. Plus there are some aspects that feel ludicrously over the top. Still, the research is top-notch as ever, with there being a lot of technical parts to what goes on.

In amongst the usual Francis trope catalogue is the unusual situation where the Jockey Club is shown as good and worthwhile in spite of being run by self-selecting peers. I was quite amused to see this as so often they are dealt unfavourably by Francis.

Overall then, one of his really good ones but somehow quite reaching the big heights by simply not quite feeling satisfying by the conclusion.

Rip roaring thriller set in the shady world of horse racing. I've read a lot of Dick Francis books over the years and they rarely disappoint. I love the action packed plots and the several different story threads that keep you guessing till the end. It's been a long time since i last read one so this was a nostalgic trip back in time for me and I really enjoyed it.

A remedy for a cold

Not feeling great with a cold, I began to read Reflex as a distraction.
I found it a worthy one to the extent I read it in one day.
I enjoyed the story and 'good
triumphing over evil' Not something that appears to be true today.
I was drawn to the hero and the other characters who were either friend or foe. The storyline had a few twists and turns to keep you guessing.
I also learnt quite a few things about photography that I didn't know
I have read most of Dick Francis' novels and think this is one of my favourites.