Tim Ekaterin's merchant bank, like all banks, invests only in sure things. Now he is about to involve it in a #5 million stallion. Top breeders reckon it's the safest bet in racing, but racing is riddled with dubious dealmakers - people to whom no bet is safe until it's paid in blood.
In Banker, Dick Francis is able to take two things I know very little about — merchant banking and thoroughbred breeding — and twist them together in such a way that I can’t put the book down. I always find reading Francis to be effortless. He pulls me in from the start with an unusual situation. Young banker Tim Ekaterin finds his boss standing in the fountain in front of the bank with his clothes on. This situation is what leads to Tim being responsible for deciding whether or not the finance the purchase of Sandcastle, a star racehorse. He becomes quite close to Sandcastle’s owner and his young daughter after birth defects begin to appear in the horse’s progeny — they all have too much to lose. Francis tends to set his main characters up in almost-but-not-quite inappropriate relationships with young (17, in this case) girls, which is a little weird, but things never cross the line. Regardless, I know when I pick up a Dick Francis book that I’m going to be sucked in until the last page.
