Decided to do a reread. Been going to the pool three times a week and found myself thinking about the swimming scene that opens this novel so dug it out and gave it another read. My original review (below) still stands.


A solid Dick Francis novel. Not one of my absolute favorites. I don't think that the hero is quite as well developed as some others of DF's heros. Still it had all the elements we're familiar with and look for in one of his novels.

A quick mystery in the horse-racing world as the Jockey Club's chief investigator travels to Norway to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a British jockey. The day's money is missing, and the jockey has not been seen since that day's racing. Why?

Decent mystery with interesting setting and characters.

Good old Dick Francis novel. Exactly what I expected - fun, mysterious, thrilling. I didn't expect the Norwegian setting or the difficulty I'd have at first with the foreign names, etc. After a while, I got used to it, but it did take a little of the fun out of it. I'd would've also preferred a little bit longer wrap-up at the end. All in all, an enjoyable and quick read - just like I wanted right now.

British race-course detective David Cleveland is summoned to Norway to solve the case of disappearance of a British Jockey along with some bags full of money. Our typical Dick Francis hero naturally solves these mystery quite convincingly.
The mystery is good, setting in Norway even better and as always the dependable Hero is great. Only the half baked romance (?) was really weird.

Perhaps I have outgrown Francis. It is also possible that Slay Ride does not rank amongst his best. I was somewhat underwhelmed. All the usual ingredients were sprinkled in with practiced competence, the devious plot uncovered by a stubborn and shrewd protagonist, efficiently brutal violence -unglorified, but subtly gratuitous, a suitably unconventional erotic/romantic filament threaded through the narrative and a worthy adversary. But while there are sparks, the book never quite takes off. There are worse books out there, Francis at his worst is still a skillful story-teller, but there are better ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Twists and turns

I confess I did not find this book as easy to read as is normal with a Dick Francis story. However as is the norm the author does not fail to introduce twists to his story which are very unexpected and these result in maintaining an urge to stay with it to try and forecast the result. Probably me but I had to occasionally go back in the story to clarify. But as usually is the case, excuse the pun, hard to put the book down because of a desire to see the conclusion

So this one wasn't my favorite Francis book but that is probably because I listened to it on audio and I had a hard time keeping the Norwegian characters straight. Bob Sherman, a British jockey, disappears in Norway after a race. The racecourse claims that he stole money before he took off but his wife doesn't believe that. Jockey Club Investigator, David Cleveland, goes to investigate and almost gets killed when he and Arnie, the head of security for the racetrack, are out on the water and they crash into another boat. David survives and is thankful to see that Arnie has too and they set about trying to find Bob. David has the police drag the pond on the racecourse and they do not turn up a dead body but Bob is still found on the racecourse under the bleachers having been obviously removed from the pond before the dredging. But no money is found. So, was he killed by the real thief? David finds out that Bob was bringing packages of blue pictures (which are apparently pornographic photos) to Norway as a side hustle but no one at the course admits to having received these pictures. David begins to suspect that the packages were not pictures but some other important papers and when Bob's home is ransacked he knows that the killers have not found them. Eventually David finds where Bob hid the papers and discovers that they are drilling charts for oil fields. David suspects that Bob was hiding them and holding out for more money when he was killed but then the killers panicked because they couldn't find the papers so they used David as bait to help them track it down. In the end, a racehorse owner who used Bob as a jockey was the killer and he was in cahoots with Arnie, who was supposed to be keeping tabs on David. This novel had less romance than a typical Francis book and far less violent torture, which made it a nice change of pace.

Like all Dick Francis books, this was a good read. It takes place in Norway, which makes a nice change of pace, and involves a champion jockey from England who’s disappeared—along with a lot of money—from the racetrack in Oslo. The investigator is a Jockey Club official named David Cleveland, a new character but typical of all Dick Francis heroes, being deceptively young & modest yet intelligent & far more perceptive than his Norwegian counterpart who’ve asked him to find the missing rider. It wasn’t hard to guess who is behind his disappearance, which detracts from the pleasure of story. And there were a few gaps in the plot that lessened the suspense of figuring out the how & why of the crime. The ending also felt a bit staged though it’s easy to see why he wanted to place it there in the snowy mountains of Norway. As usual, however, he guides the action with a sure hand, never forcing it but coaxing the mystery along, setting hurdles for his hero to take, and drawing out the clever play on words (sleigh/slay) in the title.

Best leuk verhaal over moord op een Engelse jockey in Noorwegen. In eerste instantie lijkt jockey vermist, na diefstal van recette van de dag. David .. wordt gevraagd om te onderzoeken waar hij heen gegaan is. Het verdwijnen is zo onlogisch dat David andere theorieën oppert, en daarmee onrust veroorzaakt bij meerdere mensen. Hierdoor wordt hij zelf ook aantal keren belaagd, en bijna vermoord. Leest lekker weg, en als lezer kun je lekker meepuzzelen met de oplossing.

Okay but not one of his best

Generally if you are a Dick Francis fan it is readable but there are too many places where if you were a normal person, let alone one described as super insightfull, would do things differently. On the plus side it has a number of well thought out linkages in the story line that come together late.

I bought this book on line and it came on the 21st. It is a signed copy! So fun. Another good one.

A very straightforward Dick Francis novel, "Slay Ride" delivers the goods. My only caveat is that the book has two love interest subplots that remain unresolved at the end. The mystery makes sense, has a couple of interesting twists (not wholly unexpected) and makes use of the WWII Resistance backgrounds of several characters, reminding us that Francis (born about 1920) is a WWII generation writer.

This would be a good book for a person first dipping into Dick Francis, BTW, and has the additional appeal of taking place against the background of horse racing in Norway.