A young man with the hobby of being a weekend jockey is kidnapped, and taken away on a boat. Finally, he escapes, only to be kidnapped again. He has no idea what's going on, and tries to investigate.

Very good, generates a lot of tension, only somewhat dated.

Being addicted to Dick Francis books and reading them repeatedly over the years, I am always amazed that I stumble across a HORRIBLE one. There are a few that are not good, worse too wordy like son’s writing, but Risk was #1 tiresome, boring, and annoying for not advancing the story line point ‘sooner’. A handful of Dick Francis are slow, this one for kindling the campfire, but GO BACK to all the excellent, interesting, ‘thrilling’ and enjoyable them!!

Another of the author’s usual — an exciting adventure mystery with Interesting characters in a well plotted tale. Excellent narrator Jeffrey Howard.

Risk starts off memorably, with the main character awaking to find himself imprisoned and in the dark, with no idea why, but sadly it runs out of steam as it goes on. I'd actually been looking forward to re-reading this one because I recalled enjoying the first few chapters of our hero struggling to free himself from his prison and then try to find out why it had happened but it turned out I'd blanked on a lot of issues.

One of the problems is that none of the characters feel particularly strong. Even our hero is a bit of a nothing man, which suits the stereotype of 'account' that he seems to want to buck against. After his first escape we have an awkward and far too extended platonic sexual encounter with a school mistress and later he hooks up with a fairly young (although her age is left vague) woman romantically. Both of these characters lack depth too and even conversations between all them lack spice, making much of the book simply unengaging.

There's also some big IDEOLOGY popping up: Dick and Mary liked to write a book based on what they were into that year and it seems that in 1977 they were chiefly into NOT PAYING TAX. Apparently the sob story that started our character on his path to Accountancy Exams was his mother committing suicide due to financial woe from not having claimed back what she could have done in her taxes. Really?! It's just utterly farcical it really is.

On top of that, our hero is intensely law abiding, a man who'd shop his best friend to the cops for a financial irregularity, which leads to a vague feeling of contradiction when he's laying out how the government is terrible for not turning the UK into a tax haven and generally railing against taxes.

Overall, then, a good start followed by a gradual downhill slide into, "oh right, I guess that's over, then".

Racing related thrillers - Roland Britten, accountant and amateur jockey, awakens one morning to find he can't move his hands because he is tied up with netting, held captive where no light penetrates and no amount of yelling will get any attention. But why? He knew that this was the latest in a series of events that had begun when he decided to ride in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a race second only to the Grand National in the lives of British steeplechase riders. As an amateur jockey, Roland had pleased no one when he took Tapestry past the finish line first in what turned out to be the worst Gold Cup in history. As an accountant whose clientele included horse owners and jockeys alike, he also knew more about the private financial affairs of the racing world than any other person on the racecourse. Was winning the Gold Cup cause enough for his kidnapping? Or was it his knowledge of the books?

Generally I liked this mystery. It has some great lines and some interesting plot developments. The set-up hooked me immediately. But the love interest is weak and a friend appears out of nowhere to solve the kidnapping, which is a 40 page feature of the early part of the book. The end is terrible--implausible and rushed and leaves us hanging about important plot elements.

Roland Britten is an amateur jockey, and the apple of the eye of one of his clients. She only wants him to ride her horses. He surprisingly wins a big race and is immediately kidnapped and placed on a boat. He escapes and is aided by a vacationing spinster headmistress. She wants to have sex once in her life and asks Roland to accommodate her. He does, oddly enough.
He is then kidnapped again and parked in a van. He once again escapes. The trainer of the horses he is asked to ride needs to have the races thrown so he must get rid of Roland.
Later Roland is tied to a table by three men he turned in for fraud and his boss, Trevor, who was their accomplice. After about 14 hours in agony, the spinster and Trevor's daughter save him. The con men had just enough time to escape. Poor Roland, tho he does wind up with his bosses' daughter.

3 Stars

"When he wakes in a pitch-black room with his hands bound, Roland Britten—accountant and champion steeplechase jockey—knows he’s entered a nightmare of someone else’s making. Wracking his brain to figure out who’s out to get him and why, he comes up empty, but somehow manages a death-defying escape. It isn’t long, though, before he’s recaptured. Now, with his life at stake, he must take every risk to outsmart his well-disguised enemy and save himself..."

Risk by Dick Francis is an intriguing mystery- a tale of crime and investigation, jockey's, action, danger, agendas, high stakes, horse racing, kidnapping, escape, mystery, suspense, tension, dramatic developments, and more.
->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.

I always really like a Dick Francis novel, even though when I first learned of him through the cozy mystery group, my thoughts were "Horse racing? Yuck." But they turned out to be so much more. I have read about 7 or so now. Most rate a least a 4 with me and this was no exception.

The book improved as the end was approaching. I almost gave up on the book about page 98, but I pressed on. I don’t think I will read another Dick Francis novel. My late wife loved them, but I don’t think it is worth the effort.

Rereading all of Dick Francis' books in publication order. This is the first one I've come to of which I truly had no memory. Must have read it only once and that could have been more than 30 years ago. It's very typically Francis: a hero who does the right thing at great cost to himself and bad guys who can't really come to terms that there is anybody like that. This story is set in a background of tax auditing. Always amazing how many things Francis learned about in the course of writing his novels.

3.5⭐️