Penguin audiobooks Series

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

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.

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

Decider

by Dick Francis

Published 2 September 1993

The multi-million pond Stratton Park racecourse in Wiltshire faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Lee Morris, architect, builder and father of six healthy sons, is reluctantly drawn into the turmoil.

As the Strattons fight for control in the boardroom, Lee finds himself forced to take sides. Until the day a massive explosion on the racecourse threatens his own and his children's lives.

Suddenly it isn't just the future of Stratton Park that's at stake . . .

'A writer of champion class' The Times

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.

Enquiry

by Dick Francis

Published October 1969

Kelly Hughes is a jockey, labelled a cheat by a Steward's enquiry. To clear his name he investigates all those who gave evidence, including the Chief Steward who was being blackmailed. Kelly, helped by Roberta, his employer's daughter, finds out who the real villain is and saves the stables.

Forfeit

by Dick Francis

Published 1 February 1969

Bert Checkov was a Fleet Street racing correspondent with an unnerving talent for tipping non-starters for big races. But the advice he gave James Tyrone, a few minutes before he fell to his death, was of a completely different nature...Not one for the quiet life, Tyrone has a bloodhound's nose for trouble and pretty soon he's caught up in an increasingly dangerous game. One that threatens him, his crippled wife and the credibility of the racing world. Blowing the roof off is the number one policy of The Sunday Blaze ...and Tyrone hyas stumbled upon explosive material. 'A superb chiller and killer' New York Times Book Review

The Bestsellers

by Dick Francis

Published 11 July 1996