"Finalist 1966 Gold Dagger Award; Finalist 1968 Edgar Award for Best Mystery "

Racing related thrillers - Henry Grey, an English duke, becomes bored with his lifestyle and, much to his parents' disgust, take a job transporting race horses by air in addition to taking flying lessons and being a horse jockey on weekends. When employees of the horse transporting agency begin disappearing Grey inquires into their disappearances. Before long he finds himself tangled up in a scandal that could put his very life in danger, and finds that those he believed to be his allies are aiming to end his life before the plane he's on ever hits the ground.

This is a different type of book from the other Dick Francis books I've read. It's more of a suspense novel than a mystery.

Lord Henry Grey is an Earl’s son with an inferiority complex. He believes people only like him because of his title or want to use him as a status symbol. Like all Francis heroes he is quiet, intelligent, introverted and excellent in what he does including flying and steeplechasing.

He takes a job at an air transport company for horses where the previous people who did the job have completely disappeared. One of his coworkers, Billy hates Henry and makes his life difficult. During a trip to Milan Henry falls in love with Gabriella. When his only friend disappears on a flight he was meant to take he investigates his disappearance.

This leads to a great ending with of course torture, Henry beaten and an escape in a DC4 over Europe. A great story with espionage and one of Francis’s more nasty villains getting his deserved end.

Henry Gray is a lonely, buttoned down, slightly impoverished earl with a pilot's license, a chip on his shoulder about his ancestry, and a bad attitude in general. When his sister goes deservedly ballistic on him, he attempts to shake himself out of his rut by taking a job as a groom who escorts horses on international flights.

His life starts to change when he notices an odd pattern: grooms on flights between England and Italy tend to vanish in Italy. And then, on one flight, he meets an Italian woman who smuggles birth control pills (illegal in Italy at that time) and speaks no English. It's love at first sight - probably the only love-at-first-sight story that I've ever found truly convincing. (I completely buy sexual attraction at first sight, and camaraderie/connection within a brief conversation. But Francis sells me on actual love.) Meanwhile, Henry begins to realize that the vicious young groom who's been bullying him on flights may not only resent Henry for being a lord...

Despite some oddities and dated bits, Flying Finish is one of my favorite Francis novels. The romance subplot pulls off a very difficult premise, and the climax is a masterpiece of sustained suspense. Warning for horse harm. Also for human harm.

Henry Grey has a desk job working for a company involved with arranging transport of horses. Unsatisfied with the job, he takes an opportunity to be the head groomsman with Yardman Transport, the transport company they most frequently work with. Given his title of Earl, people tell him the job is beneath him but Henry is just looking for a job where he can be satisfied and feel fulfilled. He enjoys it, except for some of the people he is working with, most noteably Billy who seems determined to make Henry's life miserable on every flight. Eventually Henry figures out what is really going on and then it's a matter of whethere he can stay alive long enough to do something with the information.
Re-read in 2012. Typical Dick Francis formula which isn't a bad thing: Man gets job working in some capacity with horses. Man finds out information that someone else doesn't want known. Man has to fight for his life to expose what is going on. How Dick Francis could come up with such variety of scenerios and have all be good is beyond me. Even though you know that the main character will win in the end, there is a lot of tension as to how to get to that point. This one is no exception. I really wondered at one point how in the world he was going to get out of the predicament in which he found himself.

Good story, terrible ending.

Like so many of Francis' books, this end abruptly, but worse than normal. It is as though he doesn't know how to deal with emotional baggage of human relations. Just cuts off, no proper finish, no tying of lose ends, dreadful,as though he can't be bothered.

A page turning story. I haven’t read a Dick Francis book for awhile, but his main character is back as always. They have different names; different occupations, but basically always the same personality. I found this book one of the more enjoyable reads. I did wonder though how Yardman planned to get away with, this time, a whole missing plane crew. Then when that was investigated, the other missing crew members would be bound to surface. Not exactly brilliant on Yardman’s part. Plain stupid actually. I dropped a star for that, but still 8 out of 10.

A friend destashed a load of books forever ago for me to read & pass on; this was one of them.

This is my 1st Dick Francis book & I think I will read another. I have a soft spot for 40s-60s suspense: the most sex you get is the hero kissing the girl; the most violence are guns, where people just fall down and lie dead, just like cartoon figures. I love their innocence and naivity and wish we had a little more in current fiction. Viseral realism can be exhausting.

And with Francis - there is always at least one horse in the story. I like this original approach, and I liked the pace and structure of the novel. This book is all about smuggling - from the witty contraband contrceptives to Milan to more sinister smuggling - telling you would spoil the book.

This is definitely a light entertainment, but one that is well written, well paced and where the hero gets to squeeze the girl in his arms, passions aroused on the last page.

The first bit is racy, fun and exciting, with a vivid description of characters and 1960s London office surroundings. The last bit was less easy to read and the very last section rather limp and unsatisfactory.

Flying Finish by Dick Francis.

Very enjoyable. Kept my attention throughout the story. The accuracy of the flying dialogue added to the excitement of the book. It is very hard to find writers with Dick Francis's attention to detail while maintaining the even flow of the story. I believe he is missed by all who read his books.

Definitely the weakest of the books of his I've read. Some of the situations are forced and it's clear he's so focused on legitimizing is flight knowledge that he goes overboard in detail that simply is not interesting to the regular reader. Plus the characters are a bit more stereotyped than in previous novels.

Not really up to Dick Fancis's normal high standard

Very slow start, over half way through before the excitement started and when it did was really unbelievable. Have read better by this authof.