The young colts stuck out their necks and strove to be the first as they would have done in a wild herd on an unrailed plain, the primaeval instinct flashing there undiluted on the civilised track. The very essence of racing, I thought. The untamed force that made it all possible. Exciting, moving ... beautiful.

A safe bet with Dick Francis is that he will somehow work an angle in his books that mentions his first and enduring love for horses and racing, even when the subject of the story is from an entirely different field of activity.
What exactly do racing and wine selling have in common? You might argue that there is heavy drinking involved, both in celebration of victory or in disappointment over failure. Trainers drink after a long day on the moors or to soften the owners who come to ask about their horses. Sponsors in private viewing boxes serve champagne and hard liquor to their guests. The crowds assault the beer stands in between races and betting. Alcohol greases the wheels of enterprise and entertainment. And this is where Tony Beach enters the picture.

He owns a small wine boutique in a village from the middle of the racing world [in Berkshire, I think]. He sells directly in the shop or delivers at home and, occasionally, he caters for private events.
Tony Beach comes from local gentry preoccupied with horses, in particular his mother who is a Master of the Hunt, a particularly British institution. His father, an army officer decorated for courage beyond the call of duty, died prematurely in a steeplechase accident, leaving deep scars on the mind of his son.
Suspecting that he lacks the courage of his father and grandfather, Tony seeks an occupation that will not put his mettle to the test. He likes to fade into the background, be pleasant and informative to customers and to avoid confrontations. His career choice was unplanned and arose from a holiday near Bordeaux where, instead of polishing his language skills, Tony discovers a talent for wine tasting and a wine merchant who offers to apprentice him in the trade.

Years later, Tony’s boutique does well enough for his modest needs, which includes building up the house of their dreams for his wife. It all comes crashing down when she dies from pregnancy complications. Life can be cruel even to those who try to hide away from conflict and trouble. Conflict and trouble who return with a vengeance as Tony returns to work and tries to pick up the broken pieces of his dreams.

The novel debuts with an uncharacteristically gory scene for a Dick Francis thriller. Multiple guests at an annual end of season celebration held by a successful owner die when a runaway heavy vehicle crashes into the tent hosting the lunch party. Tony Beach, who provided drinks and glassware to the event, is surprised on the outside at the key moment of the accident.
The need to act in order to help the injured force the man to overcome his reticence. Subsequent police investigations reveal another hidden talent of our wine merchant: he has a photographic memory and a keen eye for details about people, a way of reading their minds that is helpful in his wine trade.

Initially, I thought the main plot will be the investigation of the incident as a planned terrorist attack, since among the victims were a wealthy sheikh and his bodyguards. However, the plot thickens considerably when Tony visits a local restaurant owned by another victim, where complaints about watered whisky and counterfeit wine bottles are frequent. Once again, Tony’s particular talents come into play, this time his ability to identify import wines in a blind tasting.

He said, ‘You sell knowledge, don’t you, as much as wine?’
‘Yeah. And pleasure. And human contact. Anything you can’t get from a supermarket.’

Without getting into spoilerish revelations, Tony gets his hands full with additional tasks when his friends ask for a little help with training horses for the hospitalized host of the party, continue his liquor tasting in every bar from the county and even investigate some missing tankers that carry – guess what? – raw whisky from Scottish distilleries to English bottlers.
Our hero’s life gets so interesting that he gets mugged, shot at, burglarized and chased at gunpoint around an empty racetrack. All this before he has the faintest idea what kind of viper’s nest he has stirred.

>>><<<>>><<<

Proof is one of the best titles in a very long list that includes extremely few real duds, but numerous copycats of a successful formula. Francis recycles a lot of his basic plots and uses a limited number of stock characters, usually a timid, reluctant yet very competent hero versus a bully type of adversary that believes violence is the best way to get results in business.
What these books may lack in terms of surprises are more than compensated by the obvious passion for the racing world, by the empathy displayed in character interaction, by the solid research done into each particular field of activity described in the book and by the engaging first person narrator.

What sets ‘Proof’ apart from its peers is the way several different plot lines are brought together, the higher percentage of actual action scenes, the friendship between Tony and Gerard [an older private investigator into white-collar industrial crime] that replaces the usual romantic sub-plot, the way the villain is revealed from his very first entry into the limelight, yet his identity remains a mystery. And something that can get overlooked in a Dick Francis novel, even as it always lurks in the subtext: his subtle sense of humour:

Be grateful for villany, I thought. The jobs of millions depended on it, Gerard’s included. Police, lawyers, tax inspectors, prison warders, court officials, security guards, locksmiths and people making burglar alarms ...
Where would they be the world over but for the multiple faces of Cain.

There’s a memorable scene involving a matron from a local bar that terrifies both her clients and her husband, but my favorite moments are the self-deprecating, stiff-upper lip quips between Tony and Gerard as they lie bleeding in a parking lot or as they try to minimize the hair rising terrors they have gone through.

I stopped his car beside mine. We both got out. We stood looking at each other, almost awkwardly. After such intensity there seemed to be no suitable farewell.
‘I’m in your debt,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘Other way round.’

Dick Francis doesn’t normally lets character do sequels, but I wouldn’t mind meeting Tony Beach somewhere down the line. I might even buy a few good bottles of red based on his advice.

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Dick Francis's thriller dramatised in eight parts by Ernest Dudley.

Episode 1 of 8
The champagne is flowing at a party thrown by racehorse trainer Jack Haythorne, when tragedy strikes. But is it just an accident..?

Episode 2 of 8
In the tragedy's aftermath, Tony Beach goes wine and whisky tasting in the cause of criminal investigation.

Episode 3 of 8
The fraud plot thickens, as Tony Beach meets the boss of whisky hauliers Charter Carriers.

Episode 4 of 8
Dodgy drink, a missing racehorse and a body at a restaurant. Wine merchant Tony Beach is in the thick of it...

Episode 5 of 8
Mystery for Tony and Flora - is her son back from Australia? And can a diary unlock the mystery?

Episode 6 of 8
Wine merchant Tony Beach has to deal with some unwanted visitors to his store.

Episode 7 of 8
Kenneth Junior makes a request from hospital, and Tony learns more about the mysterious Paul Young.

Episode 8 of 8
Tony Beach and his detective chum Gerard MacGregor attempt to unearth the true identity of Paul Young.

Stars Nigel Havers as Tony Beach, George Parsons as Gerard, Jennifer Piercey as Flora, Tim Reynolds as Fulham, Pauline Letts as Mrs Fulham, Alan Dudley as Jack, Andrew Branch as Jimmy, Stephen Hattersley as Sgt. Ridger and Manning Wilson as Chief Sup. Wilson.

Director: Matthew Walters

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007m9f7

I can't say anything bad about this book. It had all the qualities for a good mystery... deception, intrigue, and murder. I guess the thing I had the most problem with was the combination of the liquor, horse racing, and the murder at the beginning of the book. When you go back and take it all in I have to admit that it was a very complex plot. The author did a commendable job of almost tying all the loose ends up and offering some excitement at the end that the book had mostly lacked throughout. If you like mysteries a little on the cozy side...you should really like this book.

Tony Beach is a wine merchant with a small shop. He also provides the alcohol/drinks for parties. While at a party he did annually for a horse trainer, there is a horrible accident when a horse trailer careens down the hill from the car park and into the party tent. Over the next couple of weeks, Tony becomes involved in two investigations. There was the investigation of what happened at the party but there is a bigger investigation going on. Larry Trent, one of the attendees at the party (who is killed) had been blabbing about how he'd been at another party where the alcohol wasn't the quality is should be for the label. He'd been talking to Tony, which is how he got involved. The police looked to Tony as an expert to help locate the watered alcohol. What happens next is standard Dick Francis hold-on-for-the-ride stuff.
I really enjoyed this one. I'd been looking at Goodreads lists of Dick Francis books and this one was right at the top of the votes. I can understand why. The story pulls you in and introduces a number of characters and then the questions. The main character gets himself in and out of a scrape or two. About the time you're wondering how is this all going to come together, the pace picks up and the last hundred pages are a flying race to the finish. I was reading it on edge wondering what was going to happen and would he get out. I'd not read one yet where he didn't, but o my! Thriller to the end.

One of my favourite Francis thrillers. This one is a bit different to many of his others as horses & racing is very much on the periphery. Tony Beech has never had much time for horses, feeling he lacked the courage of his mother, father & grandfather who were all extremely keen. Instead, he is a wine merchant with a clever "nose" & finds himself involved in an investigation of stolen whisky & red wine: a dangerous investigation with a very nasty mastermind. Tony has courage, all right!

If you think Dick Francis books are all about horses and racing, and you don't think that's your thing -- START HERE. This is wine and fraud. I'm escaping into old Dick Francis books during 2020. Heroes are always quietly very competent, which I appreciate right now. Wish he wrote more female characters, but it is what it is.

Read this while in 1.5 vacation days, escaping into world of wine merchant and financial shenanigans. My own book, The Second Lie, features wine fraud -- but Francis digs so deep into the details of the scheme, so well done. And this book has one of his best starts ever. Eight people dead before page 30! (And the climax is utterly terrifying).

This was my first Dick Francis crime thriller and I finished it with mixed emotions. The skill of any great writer is to make the story easy and effortless to read and enjoy. Francis has that in abundance. I’m just left asking questions after a dramatic opening chapters which sees multiple people killed, why this was purely an accident leading to a plot of alcohol theft. You can tell it was published in 1984 due to a certain lack of technology and regard for driving after a few glasses of wine!! Still an enjoyable read.

Next to Break In, this may be my favorite Dick Francis story. The storyline is intriguing, enthralling and heartbreaking. Anything I know about scotch, I learned from Dick Francis. Twenty years after reading Proof, I bought a bottle of Laphroaig for my boss based simply on this book. A definite winner!

Another Dick Francis novel with an unassuming , down-to-earth hero. Tony Beach is a man without any ambitions and a disappointment to his family as he fails to follow his father, who was a jockey and a decorated war hero. His teacher in high school tells in his report card " Beach's conspicuous intelligence would take him far only if he would stir himself to choose a direction" . He would rather duck under the fences rather than jump over them and why run when trotting would do !
He is very clever, observant and has sharp analytical ability. And he is an authority in his chosen profession, that of a wine dealer.
Because of his knowledge, he is inadvertently caught in the midst of multiple investigations
-a restaurant selling wine of inferior quality under an expensive label
-gruesome murder of a bartender
- wine truck stolen during transit.

The plot was complex, and very interesting. I could only cheer when Tony finds the courage (which he himself didn't know existed) against the bad guys in the end.

I know absolutely nothing about alcohol except "Don't drink and drive". This book gave very good information on wine business. I was feeling light headed when Tony went about tasting wine in different pubs. The narration is that good.

This is how he describes one wine - " It's light. not much body. No finish. But pleasant enough. Palatable. Wherever it came from it wasn't abused too much before it was bottled"
I usually don't like first person narration because in most of the books these days (psychological thrillers) they are unreliable narrators and just thinking from their POV makes me sick.
But Dick Francis always writes in first person and it is so delightful ,as the protagonist doesn't come across as a pompous a**hole.

As most of the reviews here have pointed out, Dick Francis's heroes are likeable (which is a rare thing in the recent books)

This too has some scenes related to horse racing, though it is not about horse racing. So, it was on familiar turf.
Though the pacing was steady, it felt too wordy at times. And some parts of the ending seemed far-fetched. It is not a perfect 5*, but I am rounding up as it is way way better than most of the books I rated 4*.

I read a hardback after a long time. I liked the front cover. It shows a breaking bottle on a red background. Nowadays when we read ebooks, cover doesn’t really matter. But most of the covers have a man or woman (or a silhouette) with their back to the camera. I admired the cover for a while before starting the book.

Proof by Dick Francis is stunning mystery writing. I don't even care about wine or race jockeys but the world Francis has built in this novel is wonderful to experience. The plot is a perfect mix of a slice of English life mixed with mystery that keeps you reading. Chapter 17 was incredible and has my heart racing the entire time. I think Tony and Gerald are a cool duo and would have loved to read more about them solving private investigations. I feel like Tony Beach could have turned into a main character for his own series, but atlas, this is the only book we got. Great set of characters and great ending. The novel was so fantastic, I'm going to read it again soon.

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.

An above average ‘mystery’ with an unassuming hero. It was a breath of fresh air to have a hero who wasn’t great at everything and a fairly solid story that entertained. I did feel the wine and whisky tasting were stretched out a bit too much, but I enjoyed the read.