An excellent murder mystery with a bunch of players and angles. I find I always enjoy a Francis mystery more when his protagonist has more skin in the game. In the previous book, Comeback, Peter was just kind of swept up in events. He helped those under siege more out of a sense of obligation than personal investment. Here, Freddie is the one under siege. He is deeply personally invested, since it's his employee murdered and his business on the line.

This was the book that introduced me to Cockney rhyming slang. A character might say, "I'm going up the apples to have a butcher's." Apples and pears = stairs. Butcher's hook = look. Ergo, "I'm going up the stairs to have a look." I had no idea this was a thing before. It's fascinating. Also incomprehensible (part of the plot revolves around trying to figure out the slang) because my brain doesn't work that way, but still. Fascinating. (A more recent mainstream example would be the speech patterns of Basher in Ocean's Eleven, played by Don Cheadle.)

I love that Freddie's sister, the academic, flies a helicopter. Because why not?

Profession in Focus: Horse transportation service. Freddie owns a fleet of horse vans and manages a handful of drivers and staff. The part of me that loves organization and logistics gets stressed out (and a little gleeful, I'll admit) thinking about all the planning that has to go in to an operation like this, even a small one. And this is in the pre-cell phone, pre-GPS, pre-serious computing world. Written logs, satellite phones, floppy discs, and DOS prompts, woo!

Protagonist as a Memorable Character: Medium. Freddie is like most Francis protagonists: youngish, thinish, unflappable, capable, with reserves of inner strength (shocking, I know), but here the traits seem a bit muted. That's only because I've been reading the Francis books in succession; I'm not sure I'd have noticed it otherwise. I mostly remember him in terms of his business, how proud he is to have built it and how hard he fights to keep it running.

Relation to Horses: High. Cheltenham is a racing town, everyone is involved in it.

Love Interest: Yes. Nifty and different because she's older than he is. There's a love interest almost every time, but I really like that almost all of them are ladies who earn their own living doing something they're good at.

Abrupt Ending: Yes. Most Francis novels end abruptly once the killer has been discovered and/or incapacitated instead of taking time to ease the reader down gradually.

Great crime/murder mystery surrounding a former horse jockey who now owns a horse transport business. When one of his staff members has a mysterious “accident”, he suspects foul play and endeavors to get to the bottom of it, but then finds himself caught in the middle of it.

Nice and easy.

I have read just one novel by Dick Francis prior to this one. Some fifty years ago when I was a child. I bought the book from a sale just before Christmas. I don't remember anything about that novel, just that I liked it quite a lot. It was "Dead Cert", published in 1962.

So I had some mild expectations when starting "Driving Force" and I was not disappointed. Easy reading, a bit complicated plot - a detective story without a detective. Slightly like something by Lady Agatha as also the surroundings were those of a smallish English village.

Horse racing is something I truly dislike but it didn't bother me too much. I presume Francis writes about horses and horse racing in all his novels (being an ex-jockey himself) so it can't be avoided. But he writes nicely and at least these two novels I've read were compelling enough.
I could easily read a third one.

Viesti
WSOY 1994

After starting a number of books that just weren’t working for me, I knew I had to read something by Dick Francis. My own version of a cozy mystery. In rereading this one, I did notice that the author went into a lot of unnecessary detail about schedules, computer viruses, horse viruses. I just skimmed through, knowing it wasn’t important for me to know about, say, pleomorphic organisms symbiotic in and transmitted by anthropod vectors. A nice relaxing read.

6/18/21 review

Freddie Croft is a single thirty-something ex-jockey running a fleet of vans which transports horses around England, Ireland and France. After his parents died in a car accident, Freddie was raised by his older sister. An additional twist to Francis’ typically unusual, often dysfunctional family situation is that Freddie has fathered a child with whom he has no relationship.

It’s no surprise that Freddie handles conflict with cool composure. A typical Dick Francis protagonist. There were plenty of bad guys to chose from in solving this mystery. I did have a soft spot for Jogger and was sad to see him killed off. One surprise for me was how attached I became to many of the characters. I was disappointed the story ended, although I was certainly happy with the plot resolution. I found myself missing the characters. I wanted to follow Freddie and Nina’s relationship into the future. I wondered if Freddie would ever have a relationship with his daughter. Finally, there was Aziz. I definitely wanted more of his story.

Even tho these books aren't part of a series, they still feel that way. In every book you feel like you're meeting with friends. I've read most of them multiple times.

I will forever pick up Dick Francis to read.
I didn't find this book to be as fast paced as the first two I read but I really enjoyed the skillful execution of the plot.

This book was free; I found it in the post office at my college with a post-it note that said "free!" on it. I probably never would have picked it up otherwise, and that's just as well. Mysteries and thrillers are something I've been trying to get into, but even though I didn't see the end of this one coming, I didn't enjoy it all that much. I guess I really don't care about horses. I mean, I knew that. I knew that I didn't care about horses. But now I know for like, sure that I really don't care about mysteries about horses.

I did like the cast of characters, though, and it wasn't like, terrible. It's just not something that I will ever pick up again, and I'm probably never going to pick up another one of Dick Francis's novels, unless they are for free in the post office with a sticky note.

good to the last drop. Dick Francis' final novel is not his best, but it moves at a brisk pace with memorable characters and artful thrills

The first of Dick Francis' books I have read. It kept my interest and was thoroughly enjoyable. Cleaver twists and turns and mysteries solved. All in all a good read.

What is there to say about Dick Francis? As I think about all of his books (yes, this review covers all of his books, and yes I've read them all) I think about a moral ethical hero, steeped in intelligence and goodness embroiled in evil machinations within British horse racing society - either directly or indirectly. The heroes aren't always horse jockies, they can be film producers, or involve heroes engaged in peripheral professions that somehow always touch the horse racing world.

But more than that, Francis's heroes are rational human beings. The choices made are rational choices directed by a firm objective philosophy that belies all of Francis's novels. The dialogue is clear and touched with humor no matter the intensity of evil that the hero faces. The hero's thoughts reveal a vulnerability that is touching, while his actions are always based on doing the right thing to achieve justice.

Causing the reader to deeply care about the characters in a novel is a difficult thing to do. No such worries in a Francis novel. The point of view is first person, you are the main character as you read the story (usually the character of Mr. Douglas). The hero is personable, like able, non-violent but delivering swift justice with his mind rather than through physical means. This is not to say that violence is a stranger to our hero. Some of it staggering and often delivered by what we would think of normal persons living in British society.

You will come to love the world of Steeple Chase racing, you will grow a fondness for horses, stables, trainers and the people who live in that world. You will read the books, devouring one after the other and trust me Dick Francis has a lot of novels (over 40 by my last count).

There are several series woven into the fabric of Francis's work: notably the Sid Halley and Kit Fielding series.

Assessment: Dick Francis is one of my favorite writers. I read his books with a fierce hunger that remains insatiable and I mourn his death.

This one doesn't much grab me. The plot is complex, and we learn about horse transportation, which isn't interesting even to a gal who loves a Gantt chart. There's a married woman he pursues who obviously doesn't reciprocate. The hero is brighter than anyone expects and likes champagne and endures a horrible physical ordeal, all familiar Francis tropes. But in this story the social aspect of horseracing feels toxic and hostile to women and Freddie, the amateur dick, is part of that hostility.
Also the name Freddie is unappealing, which fits. He's condescending to his employees, doesn't see the constant sexual harassment of or by his employees as a problem, and he doesn't want to go to the police because they weren't pleasant when they asked him about a corpse. 
Really, the problem is that no ending which includes Freddie carrying on won't be happy one.
 
Library copy

Interesting plot which romped along at a cracking pace. Light summer reading which entertains