A fully human hero finds himself heroic

Dick Francis' books are always an engrossing read. This time we have a hero who doubts himself because he does not not share in the family's brand of excellence. As does every Francis hero, he resolves this self-doubt before the end of the book, and it also reshapes for him the aching loss of his much-loved wife.

What's different and unusual about "Proof" is the chase scene at book's end. I happen to be immune to Stephen King's brand of horror. Francis doesn't practice that kind of nebulous terror. Instead, he gives us hero and sidekick taking the investigation of a murderous perpetrator into his lair. Our hero is, quite rightly, very frightened of the man, who is known to have executed a former ally in a peculiarly grisly and cruel fashion.

I first read this book upon its publication many long years ago. The details had escaped me, but I found myself unwilling to re-read that chase scene. When I finally did, waiting for broad daylight to read it in, I was astonished at the power and precision of Dick Francis' writing. I still had to change my underwear afterward.

The book's denouement is an equally powerful catharsis, accomplished with an economy of words that deprives it of none of its muscle. Highly recommended.

I remembered this as the first Dick Francis book I didn't enjoy. On re-read, I still find it inferior to almost all of what Francis wrote, but it's not as terrible as I thought.

The problem with it is a surprising dearth of action. The wine and liquor business gets the trademark Francis research and book report, but it's not as engrossing as other areas he explored (gemstones, airplane piloting, photography, etc). In fact, it's quite dull. It is mostly talk, talk, talk. This is so unusual for Francis, whose characters are frequently laconic.

The other detriment here is that the mystery isn't really a mystery. We know exactly what was done and how it was done and who did it. Much like an episode of Columbo, the story here is in how the mc proves it and catches the bad guy.

In all fairness, I must mention that a passage where the mc reflects on the death of his wife and child is quite moving.

Far from the best by this author. Try "Longshot" or "Straight" if you want to read something really entertaining.

My first read by Dick Francis, certainly not the last, Proof made me realise why he is held in such esteem by tonnes of readers world over. The beautifully fleshed out characters, the well crafted mystery, and the flowing narrative filled with interesting information about horse racing and wines and scotch held me captive from start to finish.
I hugely enjoyed this novel and plan to dig more into Francis's body of work.

An enjoyable read but the ending was stretching the imagination. Tony Beach is a recent widower, wine merchant who questions his courage in adversity. The start of the story is exciting with carnage in a marquee by a runaway horse box. The dangers of unsupervised children.

We then get a detailed explanation of wines and scotch. Someone is selling fake wine and scotch. The story revolves around the investigation and identifying the culprits doing it. There is a horrific murder and attempted murder of Tony and Gerald who hires Tony’s taste buds to identify the fake wine and scotch.

The ending for me was just to unlikely. They find the van used when someone tried to kill them. Yet they don’t call the police and continue to search the bottling plant. Why? Still another enjoyable read when their was life without mobile phones.

I love Dick Francis' novels. He was the Queen Mother's jockey & became a novelist after he retired. His books all have horses in them in some way or another, but each is set in a different industry, which is well researched. This one is set in the wine industry, which I used to work in myself, so of course it is particularly appealing.

The funny thing is, though, as different as he tries to make his heroes, in the end they all turn out to be the same quiet, unassuming, smart, capable guy who can stand immense amounts of pain. Gee, I wonder why?

I last read it so long ago, I couldn't even begin to say when.

One of my favorite books by Dick Francis, and in fact one of my favorites of all time. I've reread Proof several times as for me the story doesn't get old.

Mr. Francis doesn't shy away from showing the main characters pain from losing his wife, and the guilt he feels for the way that she passed, instead using it (and a stiff British upper lip) to expose much more depth of character than books of this sort normally do.

One of the things that I enjoy a lot about Mr. Francis's books is the variety of subjects that he delves into, always having a foot in the horse racing world that he knows so well, but often just tangentially as in the case of this book. The main focus on wine and liquor and the big business that counterfeiting these products, and the difficulties in proving the crime is very well thought out.

I highly recommend this book.

Re-reading some of my favorite Dick Francis novels is so enjoyable for me. I really miss having a go-to author. Francis wrote with a crisp spareness and wasted few words on exposition or excessive narrative. He's definitely of the show-not-tell style. He had a gift for drawing characters in short pieces of dialogue and the briefest of descriptions. Always a pleasure to read, at the briskest pace.
In this outing, Francis revisits a theme he touched on often. His heroes tend to be ordinary men in ordinary professions, and often laboring under some sense of inadequacy, whether romantic, professional or moral.
Tony Beach struggles with a heroic heritage--a war hero grandfather and father, and even his mum is a hard-riding Mistress of Hounds for the local hunt. Tony, meanwhile, aimlessly tried to find something he was good at, landing eventually in the wine trade because of a unique talent--a natural ability to distinguish wines by taste.
Recently widowed, Tony is going through the motions of daily living and running his small wine shop; one task is catering the drinks for the Hawthorn's, a racing stable couple who annually host an event for their owners and friends. Hawthorn's assistant, Jimmy, asks Tony if he could tell the difference between varieties of scotch. When a terrible accident happens at the party, an injured Jimmy talks about Tony and fraudulent spirits, leading a policeman to turn up at Tony's door, seeking help with shutting down a fake liquor operation. At the same time, a man he met at the Hawthorn accident scene contacts Tony for help in his own private investigation into stolen Scotch.
Before long, Tony finds himself swept up in a hunt for the thief behind stolen tankers of Scotch whiskey, and entangled in the search for a vicious murderer... who may be one and the same. Will Tony find he lacks the courage of his forebears, or will he finally find that when the chips are down, he has the fortitude to set aside fear and be the hero he longs to be?
Proof is one of my favorite Francis novels. Most of Francis' books are stand-alone suspense stories. I invite you to discover the pleasures of one of the masters of page-turners.

I have only recently discovered Dick Francis as an author. While I have enjoyed most of the books I have read, this book was a step up. While there was a horseracing element, it mostly focused on the liquor industry, and I think I enjoyed it more because of that.

I also found the book really interesting. There were some interesting facts in there about wine and whiskey that I didn't know.

This is one of his I would definitely recommend.

This was an excellent production by BBC Radio 4 with a full cast dramatization.

Wine merchant Tony Beech is catering an upmarket party when a runaway horse float crashes into the marquee killing several people.

At the same time he is inveigled into investigating a suspected fraud, where inferior product is being sold off as top of the line whisky, brandy and wine.

There is an intoxicating blend of deception, intrigue, and murder in this book. It would have rated a full star higher except that there was one loose end that was not tied up to my satisfaction - and it's still annoying me!

But that aside, it is still a good enjoyable example of Dick Francis' skills as a writer in the racing world.

Dick Frances has a unique way of creating protagonists. Instead of having one main character in a variety of settings, he has a variety of main characters in the horse care and racing setting. This gives the reader a true range of behaviors. Some of his characters are better persons than others, some are more fortunate, but all are realistic in the sense that they are good people who are competent and vulnerable.

In the case of Proof, Frances adds an additional element to his protagonist, Tony Beach. Although Beach lives in the world of horses and horse racing and is seen to be an expert in the field, his profession is as the owner of a liquor store and wine shop. He lives on the periphery of horses and in the world of liquor. Nevertheless he is the only man to crack the case of a scam featuring alcohol and he nearly gets himself killed on the way.

As with Frances' other amateur sleuths, Beach is logical and level-headed while chaos ensues around him. He is the calm in the eye of the storm and gives readers a feeling of being solid and grounded while they fear for the evil doers around him.

A good read. One of the better books by Dick Francis that I have read.

It had been years since I’d read a Dick Francis mystery. I listened to this one on Audible on recommendation from my mom and loved it! All his main characters go through some sort of personal growth in his books, and this one is no exception. I’m not even a wine person, but I found what I learned about wine very interesting. I especially loved how kind the main character is.