Sid Halley #2

Whip Hand

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"Challenging....First class."
THE BALTIMORE SUN
Sid Halley, once a jockey, was now a private invesigator with only one good hand left after a horse fell on the other. His new life, though, could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories. But it was only when the wife of one of England's top trainers came to beg his help in preventing foul play at the race track that Sid Halley began to know what being haunted really was....

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1979

Series
Literary awards

About the author

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Dick Francis, CBE, FRSL (born Richard Stanley Francis) was a popular British horse racing crime writer and retired jockey.

Dick Francis worked on his books with his wife, Mary, before her death. Dick considered his wife to be his co-writer - as he is quoted in the book, "The Dick Francis Companion", released in 2003:
"Mary and I worked as a team. ... I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary's family always called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together."

Praise for Dick Francis: 'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror '

Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph '

Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National.

On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott.

During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.

Series:
* Sid Halley Mystery
* Kit Fielding Mystery

Community Reviews

Rating(3.8 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
25(25%)
4 stars
29(29%)
3 stars
46(46%)
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100 reviews All reviews
April 26,2025
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Dick Francis is my favorite mystery writer. Whether it's his racing books or his other settings, Francis researched his work thoroughly, so his books are realistic, and I like learning about the subjects he presents in his settings.

This is his second book about Sid Halley, a retired jockey turned investigator, and Francis handles the character well, making you admire the man, while you emphasize with the anquish he must handle to remain true to his own personna. In other words, Sid is a true, but realistic, hero. Note you do not have to read the first book, "Odds Against," to enjoy this book, although I also recommend that book.

Francis' strengths are his characters and his minimalist/concise writing style, as well as his quiet and mild humor. His books are fairly quick, but satisfying, reads. I recommend all of Francis' works, including those written with his son.
April 26,2025
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The second Sid Halley book was good, but not as good as the first one. The biggest issue that I have is Sid's self-loathing over his missing, now mechanical, hand and his fear over losing the other one. Not that his fear isn't justified in this book but it is just not something that is relatable and his constant turmoil over his good and bad hand gets tiresome. That said, the story itself was a decent one, even if it was very similar to Driving Force. Sid is making headway in racing circles as a reliable PI and he is being asked to look into any manner of large and small cases. The first being the protection of a horse that is about to run in a stakes race and the owner's wife is worried that he will fall victim to the same fate as their other prize horses who faltered in the big race and then were found to have suffered from a bad heart. One or two horses might have that fate but not 4 horses in as many years. He is also asked by an owner and then, separately, by a Jockey Club official to look into a number of owner syndicates that have been formed without proper vetting. Of course, both cases intertwine and soon he is fending off hulking men who want to stop him at any cost. On a personal note, he is also helping his former father-in-law, Charles, track down the man who entrapped Jenny, Sid's ex-wife, into running a charity scam that could land her in jail. That is the easiest case of the bunch and he tracks the man down but not before we have to suffer though Jenny's spoiled sulking and poor treatment of Sid. I would not be sad if she didn't appear in any future books. Anyway, Sid figures out that the horses are being injected with a virus just before racing that weakens their heart and, while they do not die, they are unable to race competitively again. The culprit is a rival owner and bookmaker who is willing to do whatever it takes to win. The syndicate investigation is a little bit harder to figure out. While there are bad actors in the syndicate, that really wasn't the point of the investigation. The Jockey Club official, who is dirty, wanted Sid to investigate so that he would get beaten up badly enough that he would either stop taking cases from the racing community or would quit his PI job altogether so that he wouldn't figure out what the official was up to. Kind of an unnecessarily complicated way of going about it.
April 26,2025
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3-3.5 stars

The final 1/4 of the book was a real letdown. Too much of an info-dump by Sid Halley and things got wrapped up too neatly.

This book started out strong with a good leading character and an interesting mystery, but I felt there were too many side-mysteries which made the overall story too convoluted. I also began to lose track of all the side characters.
April 26,2025
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Note GR description states: (first published January 1st 1969). this is not correct as book was first published in 1979, must be a typing error.
April 26,2025
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My first Dick Francis read and it was great!

Not all that fond of books set abroad but didn't know that when I began reading. Can say though that it didn't bother or annoy me at all that it was set in England. Actually learned much about England by reading the book.

Story was unique and the writing was way, way above average. Clear, clean with no excess words. Dick Francis, from what I've read, had no training in writing but he was a jockey so he knows his subject. Look forward to reading Francis for many years and hoping the last book I read of his is only one-half as good as this was.

It was great reading and kept me guessing with making so many turns hither and yon around the track. Many more than you'll find at an actual racetrack that's for damn sure.

Be nice if we were related too, since Francis is a family name.
April 26,2025
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It has been decades since I read Dick Francis and I forgot just how masterful he is. It's rare that I don't see an ending coming, and while this wasn't exactly filled with twists and turns, it gave me that. Sid Halley is a complex character and it was a pleasure to watch his internal struggle. Highly recommended.
April 26,2025
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Good entertainment. Sid Halley is back! This time he's investigating possible horse doping, illegal horse racing syndicates, and fraud involving his ex-wife. The head of Security at the Jockey Club asks Sid to investigate the vetting of syndicate members. His father-in-law asks him to investigate fraud implicating his daughter. And the wife of a prominent trainer asks Sid to protect their prize runner from tampering. Sid must endure violence and injury before solving the many problems.
April 26,2025
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One of the best of Dick Francis' thrillers, with a thoroughly complex investigation. This novel is unusual in Francis' prolific output in having characters that appear in other novels, where the former jockey detective Sid Halley is asked to work on several enquiries. For those who like their thrillers to have action, there is plenty of that here too. The book is docked a * because of the implausibility of the different problems ending up being related.
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