High Stakes

by Dick Francis

Published 1 April 1976
A racehorse owner determines to get even with the trainer who has been cheating him.

Bonecrack

by Dick Francis

Published 18 October 1971

At twenty to midnight Neil Griffon's home is broken into and he is roughly abducted by masked men. He has no idea who they are, or what they want. But when Neil wakes up, hours later, he quickly discovers that unless he cooperates his kidnappers will destroy his father's precious horses, racing stable and ultimately Neil himself.

Returned to take charge of the stables, Neil can tell no-one about his ordeal. Vicious threats and horrible violence against his horses become a day-to-day reality and he is forced to comply with his blackmailer's wishes. Trapped in a war of attrition, Neil realises he must find a way to stop these criminals before his nerve gives out. After all, a choice between his integrity and his life is no choice at all . . .


Longshot

by Dick Francis

Published 17 September 1990
John Kendall knows how to survive. He's written six handbooks on the subject. Now he wants to become a novelist - preferably without starving to death. But when cold and hunger set in, Kendall impulsively accepts an unlikely job. He is to research and write a biography of Tremayne Vickers, a famous racecourse trainer. Staying at Vickers' home in rural Berkshire, Kendall soon learns to like his host and friends, learns to ride racehorses, learns about murderers...And how his own survival tips can become deadly traps...

Driving Force

by Dick Francis

Published 3 September 1992
A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers. Ex-jockey Freddie Croft now runs a fleet of vehicles which transport racehorses across the British Isles and Europe. But when two of his drivers pick up a hitchhiker who ends up dead, Freddie's got a big problem. First, it quickly becomes apparent that the hitcher wasn't quite what he seemed. And second, Freddie finds that his horse boxes might just be being used for moving something a lot less legal than horses. Now he must figure out what is going on before the police, and before whoever is doing it cottons on and tries to stop him - permanently. 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 'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman 'Francis writing at his best' Evening Standard 'A regular winner . . . as smooth, swift and lean as ever' Sunday Express 'A super chiller and killer' New York Times Book Review 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.

The Edge

by Dick Francis

Published 20 February 1989
Tor Kelsey, an undercover agent for the Jockey Club's security service is involved in the attempt to rid racing of one of its most notorious villains, Julius Apollo Filmer. The court however, does not go along with their beliefs, but Tor knows that to let Julius even suspect the service are still on his tail would mean certain death for a number of witnesses. Meanwhile, several racehorse owners have planned a luxurious train trip across Canada, with race meetings fixed for every major city. Julius Apollo Filmer and Tor are on the passenger list. The beautiful journey through the Rockies gets uglier by the minute and Tor finds himself pushed to dangerous limits to defeat Filmer's wily scheming.

Break In

by Dick Francis

Published 23 September 1985
BREAK IN was originally published in 1985, and was the first of two books to feature Kit Fielding, champion steeplechase jockey. Kit goes to the aid of his twin sister whose husband, a racehorse trainer, faces ruin as the result of a spiteful newspaper campaign. Because of his courage, Kit in turn becomes the target. This vintage Dick Francis novel is about family relationships, about love, hatred and obsession. It is about the day-to-day life of a top-flight horseman for whom race-riding is the most demanding and rewarding love of all.

Shattered

by Dick Francis

Published 1 September 2000
When jockey Martin Stukely dies following a fall at Cheltenham races, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen video tape. Logan is a glass blower on the verge of widespread acclaim for the ingenuity of his work. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass and in maintaining a furnace at never less than 1,800 F, he is suddenly faced with a series of terrifying threats to his business, his courage and his life. He reckons that tosurvive he must find the video tape before a group of thugs who will kill to acquire it. The final race to the tape throws more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined.

Proof

by Dick Francis

Published 24 September 1984
An an annual party to celebrate the success of the racing season everything seemed to be running well to form. INcluding the need for more champagne, Until a runaway horsebox ploughed into the marquee...Witness to the terrible death and destruction, win merchant Tony Beach knows it is just one of those tragic accidents. But when his expert advice is called into play over sub-standard alcohol in a local night club, connections start to click. And another person dies...horribly. 'The best of Francis's bestsellers so far ...it's a corker' Publishers' Weekly

Wild Horses

by Dick Francis

Published 21 September 1994

Movie director Thomas Lyon came to Newmarket to rake the ashes of an old Jockey Club scandal for a new Hollywood film. Too late, he found himself listening to a blacksmith's dying confession. Found himself watching as the past came violently back to life.

Capturing the shockwaves over one woman's macabre death nearly thirty years before is drama. But a frenzied knife attack on the set of Unstable Times is definitely attempted murder. Who stood to gain from the threats? Between truth and shadowy fiction, Thomas Lyon already knew too much.

Following the real story could mean the difference between life and death. His own . . .

'Still the best bet for a winning read' Mail on Sunday



'A marvellous storyteller and an immaculate craftsman' Daily Mail


Risk

by Dick Francis

Published 1 January 1977

As an amateur jockey, Roland Britten was lucky; as an accountant he was zealous. He knew he was on the hate list of several fraudsters, but never thought pen-pushers got kidnapped - not from a racecourse. Not after winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The identity of the kidnappers unknown, the reason behind Britten's abduction is a mystery. Then, with the help of old school headmistress Hilary Pinlock, he escapes and begins to use his accountant's logic to track his abductors down.

But they have other ideas . . .

'Dick Francis holds his form like a top-class chaser' The Times Literary Supplement


Smokescreen

by Dick Francis

Published 16 October 1972
Smokescreen tells of Edward Lincoln, a famous film action man, who finds himself unexpectantly mixed up in a deadly conspiracy.

Trial Run

by Dick Francis

Published 1 January 1978
Randall Drew is sent to Moscow to investigate threats against a royally-connected candidate for the Moscow Olympic games. His brief is vague, the opposition invisible and the stakes appallingly high.

Banker

by Dick Francis

Published 11 October 1982
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.

Nerve

by Dick Francis

Published 1 March 1965
Robert Finn, steeplechase jockey finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign in which despair, suicide and hatred cross his path once too often, increasingly jeopardising both his personal life and career. As he sets out to reveal its source he finds hitherto undiscovered resources within himself which become a lifeline as events brew up into one man's nerve and another man's cunning.

Slay Ride

by Dick Francis

Published 15 October 1973
The hero of this explosive tale is David Cleveland, investigator for the Jockey Club, who goes to Norway in response to an appeal from Oslo racecourse. A British jockey, riding there, has disappeared, and with him has gone a day's takings from the turnstiles. The Norwegian police have found no trace of him, and the case is being filed as just one more unsolved theft. David Cleveland is a last resort. He goes without much expectation - and finds himself in waters as dark and deep as the fjords.

Straight

by Dick Francis

Published 28 September 1989

Derek Franklin is an injured jockey. The last fence at Cheltenham has left him on crutches. But his brother's death means even bigger trouble. He inherits a jewellery business, a mistress - and some very shadowy business associates.

Franklin likes to play things straight. But with GBP1.5 million in diamonds gone missing, he finds honesty can be a deadly virtue. His only hope of survival is to identify his brother's mysterious enemies . . .

Money hungry men who scorn the good and despise the straight . . .

'For sheer style and pace Francis has few equals' Sunday Express


Whip Hand

by Dick Francis

Published 8 October 1979

There are two worlds in racing. Winning and losing. Private detective Sid Halley has gone from one to the other - fast. First his career as a jockey ended when he lost his hand in a fall. Then his wife said a cold good-bye. Now he's on the trail of thugs who crush losers. With vicious pleasure.

These are people who aim to win - at any price. There's a syndicate of owners with a sideline in violent kidnapping. And Trevor Deansgate, a bookmaker whose hatred of favourites goes one deathly step too far...

For the sake of his health, Halley had better return to winning ways. Because to lose is to die...


To the Hilt

by Dick Francis

Published 12 December 1931
Alexander Kinloch is a true eccentric. The twenty-nine-year-old son of the (dead) fourth son of an earl, he lives in a broken-down house on a weatherbeaten Scottish mountainside, far from the affairs of the world and the noble relations who think him weird. The isolated solitude of a painter is the life he's chosen, and he emerges from his remote and quietly profitable artistic life only every two weeks, to secure provisions and pick up his mail. Then one day Alexander receives a postcard from his mother, summoning him to London to the bedside of his dying stepfather. The news takes Alexander by surprise, but ensuing events unleash even greater shocks as threats and physical danger follow him to his very doorstep. The realization that his stepfather is unintentionally about to take Alexander with him to his grave is the shock of reality that draws the solitary painter out of the untamed wilderness and into the fearful - and much more dangerous - company of polite society. In To the Hilt, Dick Francis executes the portrait of a hero caught by surprise, an unassuming man thrust into territory where the landscape is painted with blood. And there Alexander faces a dilemma: Just how far should one go in the defense of honor - to the hilt?

For Kicks

by Dick Francis

Published January 1965
A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers. Daniel Roke owns a stud farm in Australia. He's young, smart, hard-working and desperate for some excitement - all of which makes him the ideal candidate for the Earl of October, who has come visiting. The Earl is concerned about a horse-doping scandal that is destroying English racing. He wants to pay Daniel to come back with him, pose as a highly corruptible stable lad and discover who is behind it. Unfortunately, when Daniel agrees he doesn't realise how close he'll have to get to find the truth. Nor how determined the criminals will be to prevent him living long enough to tell anyone... 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 'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman 'Francis writing at his best' Evening Standard 'A regular winner . . . as smooth, swift and lean as ever' Sunday Express 'A super chiller and killer' New York Times Book Review 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.

10 lb. Penalty

by Dick Francis

Published 4 September 1997
A New York Times bestseller by Dick Francis? ...Okay, we know it's not exactly a big surprise. After all, Francis is one of the most reliable mystery writers working today (Detroit News and Free Press) and mystery's Gibraltar (Chicago Sun-Times)--who is depended upon not only for his suspenseful, literate stories but also for his outstanding popularity among readers. With this book, Francis remains in top form as he offers a compelling story of a father and son, working together to defeat a deadly adversary--and learning that politics can be the most dangerous horse race of all..