Favorite book by Francis of the 5 I have read. 9/10

7/6/12 An old reliable. 17 year old Benedict Juliard, true to Dick Francis' classic prototype, is wise beyond his years, cool under pressure, and honorable where others submit to temptation. Ben is recruited by his somewhat distant father(another oft-seen character) to be present while he runs for office. For Ben it means giving up his dream of being a steeplechase jockey. Someone is trying to keep the elder Juliard from winning and Ben is out to figure out who it is. The first part of the book was fast paced. It slowed down about two thirds in, when Ben goes off to school but it did hold my attention. I can always count on Dick Francis to deliver a solid story with a hero I enjoy.

6/20/21 Interestingly, this story is a little different from other Dick Francis novels in that it covers a five year stretch. Usually, the time line is to a much shorter time frame. Here we see Benedict Julliard as he matures from a naive 17-year-old boy to a savvy
22-year-old man. Another change is that between father and son. To start, they have the typical conflicted Dick Francis relationship. They are cordial at their infrequent visits. Over the five gear period, the two learn a lot about each other. This results in not only mutual respect but love. Not physically affectionate, but love just the same.

Not up to his usual excellence

I have to confess to being a devoted Dick Francis fan. His characters, hero and villain and secondary, are well drawn and interesting. I'd enjoy any of his main-character narrators as a good friend.
In this book, the villain is sneaky but rather bland. The plot starts out well but rather peters our toward the end, as if the publisher asked the author to hurry up and finish so as to get it into stores asap. Even so, I was not disappointed with the main character, Ben Julliard. He is called upon by his father, George, to help him with his campaign for office. Their relationship develops into a warm friendship, full of respect and admiration on both sides as Ben protects his father from unexpected attempts to harm or kill him (most likely to remove him from the political race). Even though not up to my Dick Francis standards, it is still a fun read.

I've read all of the Dick Francis books more than once and am replacing my physical books with kindle ones - that's how much I love them!
This is the story of young Benedict Juillard and his father, George. Benedict's mother died shortly after his birth and he has been raised "at a distance" by an aunt. Benedict has always wanted to be a steeple chase jockey and is apprenticing, and one day is told to leave for smoking dope and using other drugs. His father has set this up, as he is standing for Parliament in the town of Hoopwestern and since he is single needs his son as "window dressing" to show that he is a family man.
From the beginning there are obstacles to George's candidacy including the wife of the recently deceased member from the town of Hoopwestern, other candidates, a writer for the local newspaper, a local gardener who is smitten with the wife, as well as a fire, a gunshot, and a car that has been turned into a weapon. This is the first 4 chapters of the book and it only becomes more involved.
During the four of more years that happen in the story, Benedict grows up, is given a horse, graduates from university, gets a good job, and learns many life lessons.
As always in a Dick Francis book there are many twists and turns. If you read Dick Francis simply because he writes of horses and race tracks, you might find this a bit disappointing because horses are not the focus, but it is one of the author's best and most memorable books.

Written in 1996, 10-lb Penalty has stood the test of time remaining relevant to today with the political intrigue depicted. As a father and son learn how to develop and maintain a mature caring relationship, they both move forward towards their personal goals. Dick Francis provides another fascinating look at horse racing from the perspective of a young man who wants to become a championship jockey. The young want=a-be jockey's father doesn't support his son's goal wanting him to go to college and earn a degree. The father is entering politics for the first time with the secret goal of becoming prime minister. Two competing ambitions are explored and developed with the threat of assassination hanging over both. Great read.

Τα περισσότερα βιβλία του Francis (ιστορίες μυστηρίου στον κόσμο των αγγλικών συνήθως ιπποδρομιών) είναι πια παρωχημένα, αλλά προσωπικά τα διαβάζω τόσο ευχάριστα όσο την Αγκάθα Κρίστι. Ίσως γιατί δεν ξέρω τίποτα για τις ιπποδρομίες, άρα τα αντιμετωπίζω λίγο σαν παραμύθια.

Another enjoyable Dick Francis story. Here, in addition to learning about horse ownership and amateur jockeying, readers learn about the election process for MPs in England in the 70s. This is the first really political story from Francis that I’ve read, and I liked the description of local campaigning and rising political fortune, including some descriptions of 10 Downing Street written by someone who must have visited.  In most all Francis books I’ve read (and I see I’ve now read more than half of his mysteries), the protagonist faces pain and torture as a major part of the narrative. Overcoming pain is a common feature of Francis heroes. I was pleasantly surprised to see the protagonist in this book, a college-aged son of an up-and-coming politician, to only be injured two or three times throughout the book, and only facing life-or-death injuries on the last two pages (shot). Beside that episode, the only other violence in this one is a fall and concussion, a lady punched and violently saved with a drastic tackle, and the only death in the book, a steeplechase horse injured and destroyed. There may have been a couple other tackles and punches and an episode with threatening machinery, but this is by far the least violent Francis book that I can remember! And only attempted murder and libel in this one, a minor set of indiscretions compared to the normal mystery. This one really focuses on a political campaign, and I enjoyed the change of pace.  A fun read, especially if you are interested in “retail politics” in England a half a century back. And occasional digressions into steeplechase.

10 lb. Penalty is a bit different than most Dick Francis novels. To begin with, the typical Dick Francis protagonist is a male somewhere in his thirties. He's sexually experienced, and usually there's a woman lurking somewhere with whom he has been or may be involved. The story usually involves some dastardly business with a very evil villain lurking in the background who will almost certainly pose a great physical danger to the protagonist before the villain gets his comeuppance. Most of the novels are set in the world of horseracing.

In this case, however, the protagonist is a seventeen-year-old boy named Ben Juliard, a virgin who dreams only of being a jockey. Ben's mother died at his birth; his father is a very successful businessman, but Ben has spent much of his life away at school and he and his father barely know each other.

Ben is now working for a racehorse trainer and occasionally riding as an amateur jockey. Sadly he's not very good at it and, although he loves the thrill of being on a fast horse, deep down, he realizes that he doesn't have what it takes to be a truly successful jockey. He's stunned when his employer fires him, accusing him of abusing drugs, a totally baseless charge. Left with no option, Ben joins his father who is beginning a campaign for Parliament in a by-election, hoping to replace a member who has recently died.

It turns out that Ben's father conspired to have him fired so that he could join the campaign. As a widower, the father, George, believes that he needs a family member by his side to lend authenticity to the campaign effort. Rather than whining about the injustice of it all, Ben accepts the situation and we soon discover that he has a natural aptitude for dealing with people, women in particular, that will be of great benefit to the campaign.

The heart of this story involves the evolution of the relationship between Ben and his father. We also learn a great deal about political campaigns in Great Britain and get a tour of Number 10 Downing Street in the process. There are a couple of crimes committed, but they aren't very scary; the villain is not nearly in the same league as many of the others that Francis has created, and thus in the end there's not nearly as much tension in this book as there is in most other Dick Francis novels.

If I have any problem with the book, it lies in the fact that Ben Juliard seems awfully wise and mature for a boy who is only seventeen and who has not seen or experienced much of the world. He thinks and behaves much like one of Francis's usual and much older protagonists, and that took me out of the story some of the time because I had trouble believing that a boy of his age would act in the way that Ben does. Still, it's an enjoyable read, and fans of Dick Francis are sure to like it.

The father-son relationship at the center of this book is delightful. Both father and son are very competent in their own realm, in their own way--the father in politics, the son in mathematics, to some extent horse racing, and general heroism. I thought bc the book has a father discouraging his son from pursuing racing that their relationship would be very strained and conflicted, but in fact it's more a distant relationship with affection on both sides, that grows closer throughout the course of the book. And the father discouraging the son's interest in racing isn't such a relationship-breaker as it might be: For one thing, the son can recognize he's not THAT great of a jockey and would have to face the fact that he can't make a career out of racing sooner or later, and it really is better for him to go to college. For another, the father eventually realizes that his son really LOVES racing even if he's not amazing at it, and does eventually support his son continuing racing as an amateur. We love to see compromise and growth!

As for the thriller aspect of the book, there's a satisfying amount of violence and danger. Shots fired, fires started, and most intriguingly (if least threatening in the moment) some tricky car sabotage that gets caught before the car is driven. (I love Dick Francis writing technical details--he makes things very understandable for someone like me who knows nothing about cars.) As for the politics, there's the thrill of a campaign, comparable to Francis's usual protagonists' (and the son's) thrill in a race. As for the racing, it's not major but it's interesting to see the son adjust to the idea that he might not be meant for professional racing, and still want to live in proximity to racing and be involved in it in any way he can. It's a major area of character development for him, right alongside getting to better know his father.

Quite an enjoyable book.

An excellent read. Shorter then some of the other books of his that I've read, and this one wasn't as detailed either. Also you could tell by the first couple of chapters who the guilty party is. I did learn some new words for my vocabulary, and didn't realize that there was a word for such things as well. A good book for those who are just starting to read Dick Francis. After this one they can move on to the more broader and detailed novels by him.

Another excellent trip around the racetrack for Dick Francis! We follow our appealing hero, Benedict Juliard, from the age of seventeen until he's 22. In the opening, Ben's father arranges for him to be kicked out of the stable where he's been riding in order to be an ornament of the father's campaign for Parliament. Ben, and his father, learn a lot about politics on both the local and the Downing Street level. They also learn how dangerous it can be to cross an ambitious man, even one who prefers to work in the shadows.

Francis provides an interesting picture of a local political campaign. The volunteers, the doorbelling, the campaign literature, the variety of audiences the candidate has to address, and the pressure of time running down to election day. Once Ben graduates college and goes to work for a racing insurance firm, we get a more detailed glimpse into that world. All building to a satisfactory climax!

As in many Francis novels, many to the lessons he conveys about finance, insurance, and ambition are applicable to any arena of life, not merely to horseracing. A well-paced, enjoyable book.

14 Feb 1998
26 Nov 1998
19 Sep 2016

Saturday was the fall library booksale. I had to pick up some holds and check them out at the front desk, so the girls got to hunting. The self scanner was down, and there were lines for the librarians so it took me a few minutes to get back to the sale room. I walked in and they immediately started handing me things they knew I would want, and pointing out where other things (like Dick Francis hardcovers) were. I picked up several delightful finds, but of my haul, only two were not chosen first by my kids. They get me. They also cleaned up for themselves: Al Franken and Stephen Colbert, an aircraft/flight coffee table book, a smallish two-volume hardcover Complete Shakespeare, and another copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because sometimes one needs one's own copy. I also bought a Francis hardcover that I already own, but that's okay, because I'll donate the spare back to the library, and pick up whatever I'm missing next time.

So, I don't know why I didn't have this one, unless there's a random box of books hiding somewhere unpacked. We've lived here eleven years, but that is a possibility.

Review: very much like Hot Money in the son-bodyguarding-the-father bit. The son is 17 when this starts, 23 at the end, and although he is the narrator, there's no mistaking this for YA; the voice is looking back from some distance.

Feminism fun fact: no one is mocked for being a feminist. On the contrary, there is real understanding of the special disadvantages women suffer (in this case, politicians getting bad press about their clothes, rather than their policies). Oddly, for a book about politics, parties are never identified. Surreally, the by-election takes 1 month, and strict spending limits are enforced. I know it's not the same as a general election, but I'm not sure we in the US could even elect a dog catcher now without spending billions and dragging it out for years. When will our long national nightmare be over?

Personal copy