Champion steeplechase jockey Derek Franklin is nursing a broken ankle caused by a fall and an encounter with a horse's hoof when he receives a call that his much older brother Greville was in hospital after some scaffolding fell on him in Ipswich.

Derek and Greville had reconnected only a few years earlier. The nineteen year age gap was difficult for them to overcome until Derek became an adult himself. Recently, though, they had been meeting for occasional dinners and exchanging occasional phone calls. Derek rushes to Ipswich to be present when Greville passes away. Then he has to try to settle the affairs of a man who was known for keeping secrets.

Greville was a gem merchant with his own firm. Derek has inherited it and all of his other property including his two race horses. When he learns that his brother had purchased a number of diamonds for a famed jeweler, all of the employees at the firm are surprised. The firm didn't deal in diamonds. Worse yet, the diamonds are missing and the loan payment for them is coming due.

The racehorses are also a problem. They are kept with noted trainer Nicholas Loder. But Derek as a jockey can't own racehorses. Derek gets bad vibes from Loder when he phones him to discuss the horses. Loder is angry and also frightened.

This gives Derek two different mysteries to solve and someone doesn't want him to solve either of them. Besides an attack when he is leaving the hospital after his brother's death, he also has to deal with break-ins at the business and at Greville's home. Then there is the car accident when the man chauffeuring Derek and a couple of horse owners from a race. The driver is killed and it as a near thing for Derek who is trapped in the car.

The story was fast-paced and entertaining. Derek was a wonderful character who is bright and observant and out of his depth trying to run his brother's business. Like many of Dick Francis's characters, he is an honorable and bright man dropped into a difficult situation.

I loved this book! I had not read Dick Francis before but I will now be searching out his books. it was a real page turner -- with engaging characters, a wonderful premise and a solution that I could not figure out. The story line is a gemologist is killed and his brother is his sole beneficiary. Attempting to learn his business, understand his private life and solve a financial dilemma -- all with a series of mysterious clues. And of course the horse racing business as a backdrop, how can you go wrong? Highly recommend!

Of the Dick Francis books I've read, this feels more like a mystery than most, in that there are more suspects running around than usual (often in Dick Francis, the villain is obvious but waits to be taken down) and there are multiple conundrums to be solved. Did Derek's deceased brother buy diamonds? Where are the diamonds? Who keeps on attacking Derek? And what is going on with Dozen Roses? Derek's brother had a lot going on, and while he was a good guy and really did die by an accident, by the way--no murder waiting to be uncovered, his affairs drag Derek into a lot of trouble and confusion. Not to mention how confusing it is just going through the belongings of a guy whose hobby was gadgets and gizmos and secret compartments!
There's also a lot of talk of grief and loss in this book, and while it's not morose, it does take its time to mourn Derek's brother and explore what kind of person he was, what kind of connections he had to the people around him. It has a little character study to it as well as mystery, which I enjoyed. And plenty of action--and poor Derek on crutches for it, since he broke his ankle right before the book even began. He just can't catch a break.

I liked it better when I read it 15 years ago. On a second reading the story holds up reasonably well, but a lot of the underlying attitude is outdated at best and offensively smug at worst. The narration didn't help, as the voice sounds older than the protagonist and comes across as pompous.

Had this book laying about for 20 years or so and finally read it. It was classic Dick Francis. Really wonderful likeable hero and lots of action and intrigue. It features a lot of state of the art gadgets but since it was written in the 1980s they seem a bit ordinary today but this does in no way detract from the story.

About 20 years ago I went through a phase of reading lots of Dick Francis. Despite having little-to-no interest in horse racing, I remember enjoying them a great deal, as pacy, propulsive thrillers, and coming back to him thanks to finding this book at a local community book exchange, I discovered this assessment remains true.

Although very much a 'genre' writer, who would not win plaudits for fancy prose or abstract sophistication of language, Francis is clearly an extremely talented writer. Greville, arguably the central character of this book, is in a coma by the time we meet him, dead within a few pages, yet we still come to know and like him as the book progresses, by encountering his friends, colleagues and enemies and their posthumous recollections of him. How many thriller authors could pull that off? Not many, I reckon.

Indeed, for most of this book I had a sense of "master at work", so impressed was I by Francis' creation of yet another sharply-crafted page-turning mystery despite the central conceit of the central figure holding everything together, being dead.

At the end, I must admit feeling slightly disappointed, as a few things (I won't spoilerise with details or even hints) didn't seem entirely convincing. The resolution of the mysteries didn't seem to do full justice to the setup and exploration of the mysteries. Ordinarily I would expect this to severely undermine my appreciation of this type of book, but in this case, I enjoyed it so much along the way I'm giving it a generous four stars anyway.

4.5 Stars

"I inherited my brother’s life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother’s life, and it nearly killed me."

Straight by Dick Francis is another fantastic crime & investigation story full of mystery, suspense, gems, thieves, murder, horse racing, intrigue, tension, danger, and dramatic developments.
->2023 Reading Challenge.
->Glennie's Collection
Dick Francis novels were a familiar fixture in our household when I was growing up, as both my parents loved his books. He was amongst the first ‘adult’ reads that I explored at the time, and over the years I have read everything he’s written. I remember every time my mother read one of his books, she'd tell me about him and how he'd gone from being an RAF pilot to being the Queen Mother's favourite jockey, before retiring to become a journalist/writer.
Since my mother passed away over a year ago, I have been making my way through her book collection, finally. I decided to make reading her entire collection a part of my reading challenge for the next couple of years (she has a HUGE collection), as well as a way to pay tribute to my mum, who was such a voracious reader..... Reading her collection of books has stirred up a lot of memories, mostly of our shared love of reading. I am forever grateful that she passed on her love of reading to me.

Francis most thought provoking book yet

When Derricks brother died unexpectedly he found he had to fall Into his brothers life and uncover the mystery of missing stones as well as discover if a horse ownned by his brothers firm had been given something that allowed it to win. With mysterious attacks and a car crash he was in danger especially since he did not know why.

This dramatic mystery reads like a 1980s/90s TV show a la Magnum PI (which I happened to love). The threat level is high and diamonds, horses, and a mistress are involved. The latter is where the story lost me. I could hang on for the car crashes and intrigue, but the lady was a bit much. And letting hostile people into your house when you've had 3 attempts on your life in the last week seemed unlikely. Still I enjoyed this and felt like I was in my childhood home watching Magnum and Higgins with my mom.

Really 3.5 but I'm a round-up guy. My first Dick Francis novel. I chose this one by looking at various ranked lists on the web and this one landed on top on a few. Okay, I did like it. It was a steady read without thrills. Actually, there were a few "exciting" events but they didn't grab me that way. They happened so abruptly I had no time to sit on the edge of my seat. I just wish Jason would've been dealt with in some way, like a good kick in the head by Dozen Roses!

This was my first Dick Francis book and I really enjoyed it. It’s rare a read stand-alones anymore.

There are a bunch of red herrings and when you think the story is going to go one way it went another. I really liked the characters and Derek especially. I’m sad he lost his brother and all the things he learned about him postmortem just added to the sadness.

This ended with a very interesting conundrum.

Straight is an especially intense, complex, and atmospheric entry in the Francis series. The book drops you "straight" into tragedy, and it never really lets up from there. Multiple villains are out to get our hero -- and he gets bashed, crushed, squashed, mauled, and generally folded-spindled-and-mutilated in the course of figuring out who did what to whom. In the meantime Francis teaches us about the gemstone trade, the electronic gadgets current at that time, and several twisty puzzles left behind by the hero's dead brother -- and generally there isn't a dull moment throughout the whole book. This is another good one.