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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book came recommend by several people, all of which love Dick Francis' writing. The writing was good, it felt like realistic and plausible scenarios for the most part (other than a very unrealistic escape from pursuers about halfway through the book), which was nice. The main character, Sid Halley, wasn't super-human, he just had common sense and was methodical and calculating, which made him more relatable. 3.5/5 stars, very solid.
I will probably read some more by Dick Francis in the future, but I don't think it will be a lot, I can see myself getting a bit tired of the stories revolving around horse racing.

It was fun reading a detective story after a long time, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Recommended for thriller and detective genre lovers.

Happy Reading.

I put in my last review of a book from the Sid Halley series that this character could be infuriating. If you read this book you'll see what I mean. This book has a gripping story of multiple strands, but the main narrator is carrying chips on both shoulders the size of planks, which makes the whole experience of this book rather uncomfortable and at times I find myself really wanting to shake him, to put it mildly. Having been disabled all my life, and becoming more severely physically disabled as I get older, I understand about fear of helplessness, humiliation, rejection and failure, and I also know that everyone reacts to it in different ways. Sid Halley's way is to lock everything up inside, not to let anyone in, even those closest to him, and to let relationships crash and burn rather than admit to being human. Some would find this admirable. I find it egotistical and deeply infuriating. It really took away from what is a very good story.

In "Whip Hand," Sid Halley returns, this time with his damaged hand replaced with a myoelectric version. He's returned to life after the depression of the first book, but has to face his own weakness when his nemesis threatens him with his worst fears.

Francis's use of Halley as a recurring character has a number of fascinating aspects, one of which is that the Sid Halley books were not written back to back--unlike the books about the other recurring character, Kit Fielding, which were written consecutively and both set in the same time period, the early 1980s--but rather in different decades: "Odds Against" came out in the 1960s, "Whip Hand" in the 1970s, "Come to Grief" in the 1990s, and "Under Orders" in the 2000s. Sid thus time travels in a way: in "Under Orders" he is less than 10 years older than he is in "Odds Against," but the action is set 40 years later. This is an issue that the writers of long-running series have to contend with, which they do in different ways: Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone lives in a time warp, forever in the 1980s, while Robert B. Parker's Spenser seems to age at about half the normal rate, so that he is, if I remember correctly, in his late 30s when the series begins in the early 1970s (he's a Korean War vet), but 40 years later, when the last books came out, seems to be only his 50s, unless he is a very, very well preserved 75-year-old.

Anyway, Sid Halley's time confusion is nothing unusual in the mystery genre, so you can accept it or not. "Whip Hand" is for the most part more lighthearted than "Odds Against," as Francis's books from the 1970s tend to be, with a cheery romance and one the main action sequences taking place in a balloon race.

In the end, though, Francis's fascination with the limits of human endurance, physical and mental, and with our acute fragility come through with especial clarity, as they always do in the Sid Halley books, and the ending is satisfyingly gut-wrenching, showing why Sid is Francis's favorite character. If you haven't been bitten by the Francis bug yet, the Sid Halley series is a good place to start, and "Whip Hand" is an excellent continuation to the franchise.