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Flying Finish

dick francis

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When amateur jockey and pilot Lord Henry Grey launches himself into a career in the bloodstock market, he finds more danger and excitement than he'd ever anticipated. Henry immediately takes to his glittering new world and, when he meets the glamorous Gabriella in Italy, is sure he's hit the good life. That is, until a horse mysteriously dies in transit and a colleague vanishes. Then Grey discovers that both his predecessors went missing in mysterious circumstances and begins to doubt the wisdom of his career change. Either he has to turn detective or his own disappearance could be next ...

276 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1966
Literary awards
edgar award, 

This edition

Format
276 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
August 1, 1999 by Jove
ISBN
9780515125603
ASIN
0515125601
Language
English

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About the author

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dick francis

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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

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
36(36%)
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35(35%)
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29(29%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Nightmare_Eyes
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I like a lot of Francis' books and this one in particular. The hero is pretty clearly intended to be read as being somewhere on the autistic spectrum (although it's never made explicit) and the handling of both his interior monologue and his emotions is fascinating.
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Ratentaisou
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I found Flying Finish at a local flea market. I picked it up because of the gorgeous maroon-and-gold hardcover (which is tragically too esoteric to appear on Goodreads), and I bought it because the first page made me giggle. I’m glad I did.

Having not read a mystery book since my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys days, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself so invested in this book. The hilarity was well-timed, the plot well-structured and the prose well-expressed.

Francis captures his time in the ‘60s wonderfully, without making his characters seem dated or scenarios far-away. And while it remains only a sub-plot in the story, he pens protagonist Henry’s love for Gabriella in a most enchanting way.

I greatly enjoyed Flying Finish. I’m glad this was the book I picked to close my year out with.
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hypertreb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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not one of his best

This mystery has too much gore, much more than the usual Francis mystery. And unless you are a pilot the intricacies of piloting are just too exhaustive (and exhausting) I hated the end because I wanted to see the girl again!! I’ll move on to another Dick Francis to clear my mind of this one! It
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allennea
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Library Audible
Much to his snobbish family's horror, Henry Grey takes on the dirty and demanding job of transporting racehorses by air (He had worked initially in the office of a company handling the paperwork and agents for transporting). And when he discovers that he is transporting something altogether different, he has to fight to land with his life intact.
Meets friend of pilot Patrick - Gabriela and falls in love with her an Italian girl. They comunicate in french as he does not know italian and she does not know english.Patrick is fluent in italian. In Milan Gabriela works at souvenir counter in the airport. Patrick smuggled contraceptive pills for Italian women who could not get them in Italy.
Various employees of transporting company that Henry Grey worked for had gone missing as they were murdered by Billy. The boss was transporting communist and other contraband with the horses. Also, one of the senior emplyees had got involved in a scheme to export horses twice to get extra retirement money as at that time the UK was giving 1.75% of export value as an incentive.
Both Gabriela and Henry are shot, unbeknown, in Milan by Billy hired gunman masquerading as a horse groom in the transporting planes working for the boss. Billy had a real dislike of Henry as he had inherited a title and would physically bully him which was also a ruse to distract Henry was seeing what was really going on. Rather than shooting Henry after kidnapping him when he left the hospital as he had received only a graze. Gabriella shot through the lung and quite serious. Henry had some out to go to the police station in Milan, Billy wanted Henry to beg and thus gave the opening for Henry to turn the tables instend of been shot execution style outright. Henry (who has a commercial licence) flies the larger hijacked place DC4 back to his home airport just enough fuel, only just found the airport. Patrick also survived but two other flight crew murdered. Ends with the understanding Gabrella and Henry and Patrick all survive and Henry is going to take up the pilot job he was offered. He also races horses.
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Kryptonot_7471
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Dick Francis usually writes a brand new character for every one of his mysteries, and this one in particular I found rather compelling. Like many of Dick Francis' protagonists, The main character isn't very aware of his own abilities, appeal, and strengths. He knows himself as suppressed and mild, drifting, introverted and socially awkward. The way he describes himself spoke a lot to me....except in my case, I rather lack the nerves of steel and cold willpower that he eventually exhibits in the fight for life, limb, and justice.

The only downside to this book is the excessive details of flying planes. I understand that the author was really into flying, but he doesn't infodump on horse racing, so why does he infodump on flight controls and procedures? It threw me out of the flow of the story more than once, and I ended up skimming once or twice as well. Otherwise, a very good read.
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tuklaw
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Part of the British nobility, Henry Grey is the family's hope for continuity. But Henry doesn't want to be the next lord. He'd rather ride in a steeplechase, or fly airplanes, or have an ordinary job. He doesn't want to get by on his title. That's the first tension in this book.

The second is the threats to his orderly life And, the third is his discovery of a smuggling operation.

"I pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the dusk-filled house. I, Henry Grey, descendant of the sea pirate, of warriors and explorers and empire builders and of a father who’d been decorated for valor on the Somme, I, the least of them, was going to bring their way of life to an end."

I enjoy a good read from Francis. He gets the details right, whether it is a horse jumping over a fence or the way freight needs to be stored in a DC-4. But here he is unable to pull it together:
Many of the scenes run on too long
The sociopath is a cardboard cutout
There are only two-dimensional supporting characters
The romantic bits are without any depth
The ending is "not with a bang, but a whimper."

2.5*
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Historical
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Dick Francis' fifth novel, and the fifth one I've read, as well. This one has less to do with racing and horses than the previous ones, though the connection is still there. Once again, the story builds up to an almost unbearably tense climax or, really, TWO of them, in this case.
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