Not as fast paced as other Francis novels, but gripping just the same. How does he do that?

Tim Ekateron is the up and coming nephew in a family owned investment bank.

His parents squandered their fortune on high living and betting at the racetrack. Although Tim doesn’t have their habits, he’s familiar with Thoroughbred race horses and racing. So when a race horse breeder approaches him about having the bank finance a $5 million stallion, Tim is intrigued and, after doing his due diligence, approves the deal.

It looks like a can’t fail for all involved, until foals begin to be born with birth defects. A faith healer for horses, a seemingly impossible romance, and a nasty murder round out the plot.

This was written in 1982 so the technology as well as the lack of women in the higher levels of the bank directors date it a bit. Still, a good ride.

I rated this one a bit lower primarily due to the cruelty to animals, but also due to the (rather stereotyped) woman’s roles.

Another Good Read from Dick Francis.

I have read a good many of Dick Francis books. By far, this is the best I have read. Sometimes his stories seems to bog down on details about horses. This one was a wonderful balance of horse issues and who done it. I liked that the main character was a banker who was involved in agreeing to finance a buy of an amazing stallion who would be used as a stud. It is interesting and I learned not only more about the world of horses, but also about the bankers who finance people and businesses.

I'm a fan, but Francis did write the occasional clunker, and I simply found this story to be wretched. He didn't give me a single character, including the main character, to root for. We've got a would-be assassin who gets off scott free, the murder of possibly the one sympathetic character, which didn't need to happen, and page after page after page of deadly dull exposition and subplots having nothing to do with the story. If this had been my first Francis read, it would have been my last. Plus, part of the criminal plot in action is simply sickening.

I don't think there's a bad Dick Francis book. They feature some aspect of horse racing, and this one is based on breeding and breeding farms. May have been a bit more graphic than most of Francis's books, but that's just what breeding is. Some real surprises, though the answer to the mystery wasn't all that much so, but that isn't why I like these books anyway. It's not just who-dun-it, it's why and what happened along the way.

The ground trembled from the thud of the hooves, the air rang with the curses of jockeys, the half-ton equine bodies brushed through the birch, the sweat and the effort and the speed filled eyes and ears and mind with pounding wonder and then they were gone, flying away, leaving the silence. I had walked down several times before to watch from the fences, both there and on other tracks, and the fierce fast excitement had never grown stale.

Racing makes even the blood of a cautious naturally born banker boil with enthusiasm, enough to convince Tim Ekaterin - the young partner in a private London bank - that a multi-million investment in a racing horse is a sound business decision. When the horse in question starts to display signs of genetic malfunctions, Tim is forced to intervene an protect the investment, landing him in the middle of a thick plot to defraud owners of valuable horses and culminating in bloody murder.

—«»—«»—«»—

chagrin : here's a word I always wanted to include in one of my reviews. Such as writing up my end of 2017 recap, when I noticed to my chagrin that I didn't pick up even one Dick Francis novel, one of my all time favorite writers. Hence one of the few New Year resolutions that I followed through in January with this "Banker" business, which proved to me Dick Francis never gets stale, no matter how often he recycles plot twists and character types. His secret I believe is his passion, mostly about horses, but really about any other side issues that he makes central to the plot. In this case investment banking, alternative medicine and stud farm management.

The art of money management now held me as addicted as any junkie, and my working life was as fulfilling as any mortal could expect.

Tim Ekaterin is a typical Francis protagonist and first person narrator: modest to the point of self-effacement, reliable, quick witted, principled, courageous to the point of recklessness when the situation demands it ... and a hopeless romantic when it comes to women. In this particular novel there's a very interesting deviation from the standard Francis wooing since Tim is in love with the wife of one of his bank supervisors.

The banking details were well integrated into the plot, although I feel sometimes that Francis was on a sort of kickback scheme, since he is usually very complimentary towards the industries that gave him the underlying information for his thrillers. The benevolent banker is something that I find hard to swallow today, in view of recent scandals. More appealing but also a little ambivalent was the angle about faith healers, with Tim taking a very long time to decide on the practice:

I felt the same reservations about the healing touch as I had at Ascot. I was a doubter, I supposed.

Personally, I'm in the James Randi camp and am convinced right from the start they are all crooks  which made the villain of the deal obvious to me right from his first appearance at Ascot  . Tim gives them the benefit of the doubt and starts by crediting their good faith, until proven otherwise.

In conclusion: another solid addition to my Dick Francis Library, and I hope I will be able to add a couple more before the year is over. I will let one of the directors of the bank have the last word:

"But let's not," Henry said, smiling one day over roast lamb, "let's not make a habit of going to the races."

'Banker' was the only one of all the Dick Francis novels which recently I found I hadn't read. I don't know how I missed it, but in a way I'm glad I did because it has been a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I found this a little different from most of Dick Francis' other work. The connection with horses builds gradually over the course of the intriguing and well-crafted plot. The 'hero' Tim Ekaterin is Francis' usual common-sense, self-deprecating, thoroughly honest young man, but there is an air of wistfulness about him.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll leave it there. Five stars and I recommend this book. Would I read it again? Definitely!

Another quintessentially uppah-crust Francis. No detective jockey this time, it centres on the world of bloodstock agents, merchant bankers, breeders, vets--and of course the punters. There's even a transparent nod to Private Eye magazine! Breeding racehorses is as big a gamble as Win, Place or Show, but when it all goes horribly wrong for no apparent reason, there's no evidence to explain why. Or so it seems.

It's not that big of a mystery, though, as the reader is streets ahead of all the characters, right out of the gate. I tagged the evildoer immediately, and had a good idea of how it was all done as well--that particular type of malfeasance had occurred to me in my twenties as an idea for the "perfect murder." The actual "mystery" takes three years to surface, so there's a lot of other stuff in there--a lot of other stuff. After a very, very slow start, all the action and deduction is crammed into the last four chapters. Our Hero (or at least the main character) has not one but three ro-mantic interests in this one slim volume--one underage, one already married to his boss, and one enigmatic-- though there's no human sex this time. I could have done without the detailed exposé of how two horses go about mating, but that's just me. Of course the police, when faced with not one but two murders, opt for the easy answers so they can close the case and get on to the next one.

Francis' books are always about the best people doing the worst sort of thing, though of course there's a definite divide, usually along class lines, and this book is no exception. As usual, the killer is not quite the thing socially or professionally, as well as being deranged (well, he'd have to be on Planet Francis, since in his world sane people don't kill their friends) and I'm afraid I found the "big scene" eye-rollingly bad. Of course this is Planet Francis so you know that it will all come out in the wash, but still. What saved it for me was Simon Prebble's excellent reading of the audiobook. He didn't try to do a lot of different accents or voices or emoting, he just read clearly and well, with the right sort of expression. I wonder if I would have finished it, on paper?

The murder and mayhem in this was so heartbreaking that I found it hard to read. The characters weren't as well drawn as in some of his other novels. But of course once started I had to finish to find out 'who done it'. Methinks Francis grows so fond of his made up characters - and maybe grateful for his livelihood?- that he feels obligated to give them a happy ending. That's find by me no matter how implausible.

I didn't like this book quite as well as some others by Francis, perhaps because of the way it is spaced out over a period of years. The mystery has many of the elements that make Francis' books good, including the knowledge of the horse-racing world, a balance of mystery and suspense, a little bit of violence and a little bit of romance. Tim Ekaterin is a banker, who helps finance the purchase of a horse named Sandcastle, but when someone starts to tamper with the horse and threaten the profits from stud fees, Tim has to figure out the mystery and finds himself in danger as he tries to solve the case.

A very good Dick Francis mystery. There are, of course, horses involved, but our hero this time out is a banker, a London investment banker, no less. Tim Ekaterin takes a friendly interest in racing, and a more than friendly interest in a colleague's wife. A day at the races leads to an enormous loan to a bloodstock breeder, and everything looks wonderful ... until it doesn't.

There are quite a number of twists and turns to the plot, and, as so often, the villain turns out to be someone you wish it weren't.

As always, highly recommended light entertainment.

Another Dick Francis winner

The worlds of investment banking and horse racing meet and collide with greed and evil. A well written volume heavy on character development and information. This will not be to every mystery fan's taste but I really enjoyed it. A classic Dick Francis mystery delving into the mysteries of stud farming and merchant banking while his characters deal with evil and murder which is really most foul.