Not as happy or satisfying a story as the first Kit Fielding, but still a good adventure.

Surprise! award-winning Dick Francis really was a very good mystery genre writer.
His protagonist in this book, Kit Fielding, was very sympathetic.
I do recommend this book .

21

Jockey Kit Fielding was surprised when Princess Casilia de Brescous did not come down, as her custom, to see her horse Cotopxi after the race. When Kit finds her later she is in shock. She invites him to speak to her and her husband and learns that Henri Nanterre is bullying the de Brescous to sign papers so he can manufacture and sell plastic guns in the joint business Monsieur de Brescous and Naterre's late father co-owned. Honor forbids M. de Brescous to sign but the real threats to the family are great and only Kit's support permits them to hold off until he can find a way to neutralize Nanterre's threats.

Meanwhile Kit is concerned he may be losing his fiance Danielle, and in addition, there is still the fury of Maynard Allardeck, now a Steward of the Jockey Club, to tread carefully around.

A classic Dick Francis novel about honor, loyalty, dealing with bullies, self-knowledge of what one truly wants and willingness to do what is needed to accomplish justice.