Showing results by author "Dick Francis" in All Categories

A superbly crafted collection of thirteen tightly plotted tales that treats listeners to murder, mystery, and mayhem in the world of horseracing. With his remarkable blend of unrelenting suspense, finely tuned narrative, and lean, stylish prose, New York Times bestselling author Dick Francis proves that he is as much a master of the short story as he is of the novel in this thrilling collection.

Kidnapping is Andrew Douglas's business: they take them, he finds them. But it isn't so simple when Alessia Cenci, golden-girl jockey, disappears, followed by the young child of a derby winner and the senior steward of the Jockey Club. From Italy to England to Washington, D.C., Andrew's caseload is suddenly, violently overflowing. And he must fight triply hard to keep his own name off the growing list of victims.

The catastrophic power of a giant hurricane can raise coastal waves 30 feet high and blow through houses at devastating speeds. For TV meteorologist Perry Stuart, however, such predictions are hypothetical, as he chiefly predicts periods of English drizzle - until a fellow forecaster offers him a Caribbean hurricane-chasing ride in a small airplane as a holiday diversion. But a frightening accident teaches Stuart more secrets than wind speeds.

When jockey Martin Stukely dies after a fall at Cheltenham, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. Logan is a glassblower on the verge of widespread acclaim.

Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned private investigator, is facing new dangers, new deeply demanding decisions. His friend Ellis Quint has everything he could want: fame, youth, money, good looks, and talent. What Sid has to figure out is why he has committed such an obnoxious crime. On the morning set for the opening of Ellis’s trial, at which Sid is due to be called as a witness, other people’s miseries explode and send him spinning into days of hard rational detection and heart-searching torment.

An exhilarating new novel from the New York Times-bestselling authors. Shell-shocked and missing a foot-lost to an IED during his tour of duty in Afghanistan-Captain Tom Forsyth has been sent "home" by the army and, at loose ends, returns to his estranged mother's house for the first time since...

Matt Shore was an experienced pilot. He’d done it all. From big jets to flying in supplies to war zones. So when he gets a job ferrying high class punters around England’s race courses he might be forgiven for expecting a quiet life. But then his plane explodes in a massive fireball. He could have been in it. Some quiet life. Instead he’s landed in the middle of a nightmare world where there is big money at stake. Very big money.

Amazing what bodily injury could do for a man. A fall from a racehorse had left brilliant jockey Sid Halley dangerously depressed, with a wrecked hand and the need for a new career. And now a bullet wound was helping him find one. He'd been with a detective agency since his racing accident, but it wasn't until some two-bit hoodlum drilled a slug into his side that he was sent out on a case of his own. That was where he met Zanna Martin, a woman who just might make life worth living again.

The unexpected arrival of a new apprentice jockey at his father's racing stables heralds the beginning of a series of dark happenings for Neil Griffon. First his father suffers a grisly accident, then Neil is brutally assaulted and abducted. The price for his freedom will mean the betrayal and deception of those who trust Griffon most. But he has no choice: a no-compromise crime czar has made an ultimatum - that his own 18-year-old son be hired by Griffon's stables to ride the superstar horse, Archangel, in the Derby.

Randall Drew is prevented from carrying on his career in steeplechasing by poor eyesight. Restless and unsure of his future but pursuing an ardent love affair, he does not welcome an invitation to go to Moscow on a delicate investigation, but almost irresistible pressure is brought to bear. A mysterious entity, "Alyosha", is threatening a royally-connected candidate for the Moscow Olympic Games; the candidate may be vulnerable to scandal which could set off intolerable diplomatic conflicts.

When Kit Fielding, champion steeplechase jockey, finds out that his chief patron, Princess Casilia, is facing an increasingly serious threat, he goes unhesitatingly to her aid. Neither realises that his instinctive support is the first step towards a frightening battle involving violent risk, with the honour of the princess's family as the prize and Kit's own destruction as the forfeit.

Henry Grey doesn't particularly care for having been born the heir to an earldom. He is a reserved young man whose greatest problem is his mother's matchmaking plots and whose greatest joy is to ride as an amateur steeplechase jockey. But on a sudden impulse, he throws in his respectable desk job to join a firm that transports racehorses all over the world. Yardman Transport proves to be Henry's passport to many things, not the least the girl he loves, and a tidy little racket that brings him face to face with death.

Malcolm Pembroke never expected to make a million pounds without making enemies. Nor did he expect his latest wife to be brutally murdered. All the clues suggest the killer comes from close to home, but after five marriages and nine children, that still leaves the field wide open. When he find his own life in danger, Pembroke entrusts his safety to his estranged son, Ian, an amateur jockey; and through him discovers a compulsive new outlet for his financial expertise.

Alexander Kinloch, artist, has worked out a good pattern for his life. His home is a small bothy on a remote mountain in Scotland; he paints on commission, from which he derives both pleasure and a decent income; he lives alone and likes it. One day, however, Alexander's peace is violently shattered when he returns home to find a group of strangers waiting for him. Afer a scuffle, he is left for dead with only the wind and the words "Where is it?" ringing in his ears.

At 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. Then a runaway horsebox ploughed into the marquee. A witness to the terrible death and destruction, wine 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.

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 racehorse trainer. Staying at Vickers' home in rural Berkshire, Kendall soon learns to like his host and friends, learns to ride racehorses, learns about murderers ...

Tim Ekaterin's merchant bank, like all banks, only invests in sure things. Now he's about to involve it in ₤5 million of prime horseflesh, a stallion called Sandcastle. Top breeders reckon it's the safest bet in racing. But racing doesn't just attract the money men of the city. It's riddled with all kinds of dubious dealmakers. People who don't think twice about breaking bones. People to whom no bet is safe until it's paid in blood, Ekaterin's blood.

When a sick friend asks Edward Lincoln to investigate the comprehensive failure of a string of racehorses, he agrees to help out. But it is impossible for him to go about the task quietly and unnoticed because he is now a world-class star of action films, in which he always plays the hero. And the apparently easy survey of the string of racehorses blows him through a smokescreen into circumstances, where, to survive, he has to make himself become the man everyone else already thinks he is.

Despair, suicide, and obsessive hatred, mixed well with humor, love, and horses, brew up into the story of a battle between one man's nerve and another man's cunning. Robert Finn, steeplechase jockey, finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign which is also afflicting his friends. He sets out to discover its source, and remove it.

It's the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles Sid Halley. He knows the perils of racing all too well, but in his day, jockeys didn't reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest.