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If you were a weatherman, horse or cattle breeder, this will be of more interest to you than me. Still was entertaining with some plot changes that I did not see coming.
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Second Wind
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When a hurricane-chasing plane is downed on a Caribbean island, TV meteorologist Perry Stuart barely escapes with his life. But he can't escape what he saw on the island--and if the people who've tracked him back to England have their way, Stuart will have a zero percent chance of survival.
272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 4,1999
This edition
- Format
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272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- Published
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November 1, 2005 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
- ISBN
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9780425206775
- ASIN
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0425206777
- Language
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English
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
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
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Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
33(33%)
4 stars
38(38%)
3 stars
29(29%)
2 stars
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100 reviews All reviews
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Second Wind
I like to Reading boks by Felix Francis. Theis stories are and you have difficulties to stop reading them and put them away.
I like to Reading boks by Felix Francis. Theis stories are and you have difficulties to stop reading them and put them away.
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An oldie I hadn't read before. I always liked his books - people good in one career who suddenly need to apply their knowledge to solve a crime and stay alive. Here, a meteorologist is lost (briefly) in a hurricane and discovers information about people smuggling fissionable materials. Fast-paced but worth going back for a reread to savor the smaller details.
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After years of the book sale, I decided to try a Dick Francis book as we always have so many. I enjoyed the book - I would give it a solid 3.5. Lots of interesting information on meteorology as hurricanes play a prominent role in the story.
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Every prolific author must have a worst book, and this one is it for Dick Francis. Like all of Francis' books, this one has nice prose, reads quickly, and requires very little from the reader. However, unlike his other books, everything in this book is a little bit too much. The bad guys are over-the-top bad, and we have hurricanes, nuclear bombs, and food poisoning, all in one novel. If you just read everything that Francis writes (as I do), then you should read this. If you've never read Francis before, do not start with this one.
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Mushrooms, hurricanes, poisoned horses and strange attempts to uncover a mysterious business. A random assortment of loosely tied together narratives...that just didn’t work. My first Dick Francis, and likely my last.
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Dick Francis is one of my go-to authors for when I want to read without having to think too much. Semi-plausible plot, structurally similar, happy ending.
This, however, is easily the worst thing I've ever read from him. Utterly disorganised, entirely implausible, just simply makes no sense.
I quit about 2/3rds of the way through, and for most of that I was just plugging on hoping it would start to make sense at some point.
Perfect example of a book being sold simply because of who wrote it as a cynical example of how valuable a track record is.
Awful.
This, however, is easily the worst thing I've ever read from him. Utterly disorganised, entirely implausible, just simply makes no sense.
I quit about 2/3rds of the way through, and for most of that I was just plugging on hoping it would start to make sense at some point.
Perfect example of a book being sold simply because of who wrote it as a cynical example of how valuable a track record is.
Awful.
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I have now read several of Dick Francis's books and this is the first one I haven't enjoyed. The plot is nonsense from start to finish and the main protagonists are nearly as implausible as the plot. This is so much worse than any of the other books of his I have read, that it is hard to believe they are written by the same person. Had this been the first Dick Francis book I had read, it would also have been my last.
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