Whip Hand ; Rat Race ; Forfeit ; High Stakes ; Twice Shy
- 815 pages
- 29 hours of reading
Dick Francis Omnibus: Whip Hand; Rat Race; Forfeit, High Stakes, and, Twice Shy Francis, Dick
Dick Francis was a popular British crime writer and retired jockey, renowned for his thrilling novels often set against the backdrop of the horse racing world. He masterfully wove intricate plots with psychological depth, bringing the fast-paced and often dangerous milieu of racing to life. His distinctive style featured authentic details and compelling characters. He collaborated closely with his wife, Mary, on most of his work, forming a true literary partnership.







Dick Francis Omnibus: Whip Hand; Rat Race; Forfeit, High Stakes, and, Twice Shy Francis, Dick
This omnibus contains three stories from Dick Francis in one combined edition, involving the world of racing with plenty of action, suspense, greed and secrets.
Five million pounds has been laid out on a horse race. What is the Chairman and Board of Directors at the bank going to say when they find out that the money is gone? Includes questions as aids to understanding
For Kicks / Flying Finish [Hardcover] Francis, Dick
Three stories from Dick Francis in one combined edition, involving the world of racing with plenty of action, suspense, greed and secrets. The novels are "Long Shot", "Straight" and "High Stakes".
All three Sid Halley novels in one edition, for fans and new readers alike; Odds Against: Champion jockey Sid Halley gave up racing when his hand was smashed. As he soon discovers, life as a private eye could be a lot worse, especially when a ruthless property dealer has plans for Seabury racetrack - plans that set high odds against a novice detective staying alive... 'A plot that goes with the pace of a champion hurdler' Evening Standard Whip Hand: There are two worlds in racing: winning and losing. Sid Halley is on the trail of thugs who aim to win at any price. There's a syndicate of owners with a sideline in violent kidnapping and a bookmaker whose hatred of favourites goes one deathly step too far. Halley must return to winning ways. To lose is to die.. 'Superb...this is Mr Francis's best book. And that's high praise' Sunday Mirror Come To Grief: Sid Halley has uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend. On the first day of the friend's trial, at which Sid is to be as a witness, something happens which leads to days of hard detection and heart-searching torment. Troubled, but courageous, Sid Halley is unwilling to admit defeat... 'Francis is firmly in the saddle, leavi
Break In: When steeplechase jockey Kit Fielding comes to the aid of his twin sister and her husband Bobby Allardeck, death threatens. A vicious newspaper campaign jeopardizes Bobby's career as a racehorse trainer. Combining investigations with riding winners for his patron, Princess Casilia, Kit makes some startling discoveries. But some powerful people think a jockey should mind his own business and are prepared to use violence to make sure he does.... Bolt: Princess Casilia is in trouble. Her invalid husband is being threatened by a business partner andall her best runners are being wantonly destroyed-shot with a bolt. The only person she can turn to is Kit, but he has problems of his own. His fianc Danielle appears to have changed her mind. And the old Fielding-Allerdeck feud has once again violently intensified. Wherever he goes, the champion jockey seems to attract bloodshed....
With his 30th novel, Dick Francis proves without a doubt that he is one of the superstars among mystery-thriller writers.--Los Angeles Times Book Review. A globe-hopping diplomat comes face to face with a case of fatal corruption in Francis's new thoroughbred thriller.
Dick Francis has been thrilling readers for over thirty years with his stories involving the world of racing with plenty of action, suspense, greed and secrets. ENQUIRY: No jockey likes being labelled a cheat and Kelly Hughes' career seems doomed. He knows he's been framed, but finding the reason could prove dangerous. Especially with a killer on his tail... RAT RACE: Matt Shore, an experienced pilot, is expecting the quiet life ferrying high class punters around England's race courses. But then his plane explodes in a massive fireball and he's landed in middle of a nightmare world. Some quiet life. SMOKESCREEN: Film action man, Edward Lincoln, has been asked by a dying friend to find out why her South African racing stable were no longer winning. Now he's being forced to play the resourceful hero for real - or die in one easy take.
A tantalizing new Dick Francis mystery as violent and wild as the wind off the Scottish Highlands. Alexander Kinloch, an eccentric artist who lives alone on a Scottish mountainside, receives a card from his mother in London summoning him to the bedside of his dying stepfather. The news takes him by surprise, but the realization that his stepfather is unintentionally about to take Alexander to the grave with him is the shock that draws Alexander out of the untamed wilderness and into the much more perilous company of polite society.
Presents a plot that mixes mystery with horse racing.
Depicts the adventures of heroes who become involved in cases of crime and murder in the world of horse racing
A collection of stories including Slay-Ride, Banker, and Proof.
Multi-millionaire Malcolm Pembroke's colourful life has included five wives and nine children. When his fifth wife is murdered, he patches up a quarrel that has been simmering for nearly three years with his favourite son Ian, and asks for help. Ian Pembroke, who detested the fifth wife Moria, agrees to meet his father at Newmarket yearling sales. From here he is instantly whirled into a horrifying race against time to find Moira's murderer before the maniac can strike again. Greed, malice and lethal ploys lie ahead on the rocketing journeyings of father and son as they track the killer remorselessly. Yet they are still able to grab some enjoyment along with the peril as they find time to watch many of the world's top races.
Three stories from Dick Francis in one combined edition, involving the world of racing with plenty of action, suspense, greed and secrets. This novels are Forfeit, Risk and Reflex.
A computerized horse-betting system falls into Jonathan Derry's hands--and unless he returns it to the rightful owners, the odds of his survival are slim to none.
Captain Thomas Forsyth's tour of Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he's badly wounded by an IED - Improvised Explosive Device, a roadside bomb. Tom's world is torn apart by the injury - the Army is his life. Six months of recuperation leave is a daunting prospect - but not as bleak as the probability of never rejoining his regiment. Tom returns to Lambourn, to his childhood home, where his mother is a racehorse trainer and the 'First Lady' of racing. Never having seen eye to eye with his parents, Tom doesn't expect a hero's welcome - but even he's not prepared for the reception that awaits him. When his mother's prize horse finishes a disappointing last place in a race he should have won, Tom discovers that the training business is on the edge, and facing a threat far more dangerous than a run of bad form. Tom finds himself on a very different, but just as deadly, battlefield where his military skills are tested... kill or be killed?
A charge of throwing a race for personal profit leaves jockey Kelly Hughes and trainer Dexter Cranfield barred from racing. When Hughes refuses to take the charge lying down, his personal enquiry may leave him lying down, permanently.
No jockey likes being labelled a cheat. Least of all by a Stewards' Enquiry. Kelly Hughes career looks doomed. He knows he's been framed, but finding the reason could prove dangerous. Especially with a killer on his tail... Hughes' own enquiry uncovers dynamite that could blow the racing world to smithereens. Only a few powerful - and violent - men know the sordid secret. And they'll go to extraordinary lengths to keep it that way. Murder is just one option... 'Highly ingenious' "Times Literary Supplement " 'Another winner' "Publishers Weekly"
Rat Race:Matt Shore is a substitute pilot assigned to fly four racing buffs to the track. They're nervous, but Matt's not. That is, until he manages an emergency landing minutes before the plane explodes. Matt doesn't think anything else can possibly go wrong. Then he finds himself caught up in a rat race of danger that puts him on the wrong side of the odds....To the Hilt:Alexander Kinloch found solitude and an steady income painting in a bothy on a remote Scottish mountain. Until the morning the strangers arrived to rough him up, and Alexander was dragged reluctantly back into the real and violent world he thought he'd left behind.Millions of pounds are missing from his stepfather's business. A valuable racehorse is under threat. Then comes the first ugly death and the end of all Alexander's doubts. For the honour of the Kinlochs he will face the strangers... committed up to the hilt...
Defense lawyer Geoffrey Mason agrees to counsel jockey, Steve Mitchell, who has been accused of killing another rider and soon finds himself involved in a web of lies and violence.
Gene Hawkings must travel to Kentucky, on the orders of his boss, to spend three weeks looking for kidnapped stallions. But before he leaves, Gene's survival skills are called on closer to home, catapulting him into a maelstrom of blackmail and murder.
Chronicles the life and times of a sports legend, whose racing career spanned almost four decades of valor and victory, controversy, pain, disgrace, and vindication
Excellent Book
Book by Francis, Dick
"Challenging....First class." THE BALTIMORE SUN Sid Halley, once a jockey, was now a private invesigator with only one good hand left after a horse fell on the other. His new life, though, could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories. But it was only when the wife of one of England's top trainers came to beg his help in preventing foul play at the race track that Sid Halley began to know what being haunted really was....
When Mark Shillingford commentates on a race in which his twin sister Clare, an accomplished and successful jockey, comes in third, he can't help but be suspicious. As a professional race-caller, he knows she should have won. Did she lose on purpose? Was the race fixed? Why on earth would she do something so out of character?
Ex-champion steeplechase jockey Sid Haley is now a sleuth. As the story opens he has just been shot in the stomach during the course of his duties as a private investigator, working - or rather, idling - in a firm which keeps him employed, thanks tothe old boy network. Convalescing with indecent and painful haste, Sid finds the pace growing steadily hotter as he investigates the cunningly contrived decline of a racecourse, and comes to close and spine-chilling grips with the crooks responsible.
Champion race-jockey Kit Fielding's patron, Princess Casilia, is in trouble. Her invalid husband is being threatened and all the Princess's best runners are being destroyed - shot by a bolt. The only person she can turn to is Kit, but he has problems of his own
Steeplechase jockey Christmas "Kit" Fielding has had more than his share of close calls both on and off the course. But trouble hits close to home when a grudge between his family and his sister's in-laws turns into a blood feud.
From "the best writer in the mystery genre" (Larry King) comes the story of a jockey who discovers that his losing streak is caused by something sinister. Reissue.
Longtime jockey Philip Nore suspects that a racetrack photographer's fatal accident was really murder--and unravels some nasty secrets of corruption, blackmail, and murder.
Young wine merchant Tony Beach is a professional taster, who can easily distinguish between different wines. When he stumbles across a liquor scam involving substituted wines, he becomes involved in the challenge of tracking down the culprits. However the mastermind has already committed one brutal murder to cover his tracks. Will Tony be the next?
Andrew Douglas, working as a partner in the firm of Liberty Market Ltd, is used to kidnappers. But he is placed in danger when he becomes involved in the seizing of a victim which embroils the racing world from Italy to England to the United States.
Malcolm Pembroke never expected to make a million pounds without making some enemies along the way. Nor did he, however, expect his latest wife to be brutally murdered. All the clues are pointing towards the killer being close to home - but after five marriages and nine children that still leaves the field wide open. When he finds his own life on the line, Pembroke entrusts his safety to his estranged son, Ian, an amateur jockey; and through him discovers a compulsive new outlet for his financial expertise. Soon he finds himself playing the international bloodstock market for incredible stakes. Not the safest bet for a man on the run from avaricious relatives. Particularly when one of them has got a bomb..
James Tyrone, a racing reporter for a London scandal sheet, knew that fellow writer Bert Chekov was a drunk, but he always thought he was an honest one. But when Bert suddenly died in an "accidental" fall from a window, Tyrone suspected the clues to his death might be found in some suspicious columns he'd written touting can't-lose horses--who mysteriously failed to show up on a race day. In between trips to cover the next big race and secret rendezvous with his sensual new mistress, Tyrone knew he'd prove that Chekov had been murdered. But he didn't know the terrifying risk involved in proving it.
When his best friend and rival has a fatal accident in the middle of a race, steeplechaser Alan York finds the cause -- an almost invisible trip wire rigged to take down a running horse. And the more he investigates, the more likely he is to take a fall...
Writer John Kendall travels to England to interview a racehorse trainer with something to hide--a secret that could threaten Kendall's life.
The privately owned Stratton Park racecourse faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Because of shares inherited from his mother, Lee Morris is unwillingly sucked into the turmoil. A half-outsider, he is faced with difficult choices which have deadly consequences.
For Neil Griffon, temporarily in charge of his father's racing stables, blackmail has become a terrible reality. It is threatening not only his valuable horses but his own health.
Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator who appeared in Odds Against and Whip Hand is back, facing new dilemmas, new dangers and new deeply demanding decisions.
Tor Kelsey, undercover security operative for the British Jockey Club, expects trouble in the villainous person of one Julius Apollo Filmer. When a long chain of mishaps clearly leads to Filmer, Tor realizes that his nemesis is his equal in cleverness and guile and to catch him will require a particular shocking sort of surprise. By the author of Hot Money.
Movie director Thomas Lyon came to Newmarket to rake the ashes of an old Jockey Club scandel for a new Hollywood film. Too late, he found himself listening to a blacksmith's dying confession. Damaging allegations cost young Benedict Juliard his hopes of a career as a steeplechase jockey. Instead he'so join the ranks alongside his father, a high-flying businessman battling a Dorset by-election
First pub 1970. Thriller set in the world of horse racing.
Steven Scott may have been a successful, wealthy inventor with no experience in horseracing, but with the inspired guidance of his trainer, Jody Leeds, and the prowess of a beautiful black hurdler named Energise, he has brought home several wins. But his winning streak is about to come to a fast end when he discovers trouble in his own stables—trouble that could bring about his own termination if he doesn’t watch his step…
Henry Grey is a reserved young man whose greatest problem is his mother's match-making 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 which transports racehorses all over the world.
A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers. Edward Lincoln has scaled the Himalayas, survived deadly car chases and defeated scores of assassins. As a movie action man he's even suffered stoically at the hands of sadistic directors. After finishing his latest film, he's asked to visit South Africa to discover why a dying friend's horses are suddenly failing on the race track. Unfortunately, Lincoln's attempt to help a friend soon puts him in harm's way. From a nearly fatal interview to a dangerous accident in a gold mine, it seems only luck is keeping him alive. And in life, unlike the big-screen, there's no coming back from dead . . .
A gang of horse dealers get nasty when their scam is threatened, but they haven't reckoned on the steely and implacable resolve of Jonah Dereham, a bloodstock agent who flushes out the real scam and the identity of Mr Big.
When the gloves are off it's very gritty indeed' Daily TelegraphCharles Todd makes a living as a painter of horses. Someone else is making a lot more, forging paintings by masters such as Stubbs and Munnings. And selling them to people like Charles' cousin and his wife. People who usually end up dead. When Charles arrives in Australia, he's not there for the surf at Bondi beach. He's right on the trail of the ruthless fraudsters, to whom violence and corruption are part of normal business practice. And he's right in the frame for murder...
Jockey Freddie Croft discovers a high-stakes conspiracy that exposes the seedy underside of horse racing--and faces even deadlier odds of survival than in any steeplechase run.
Roland Britten, champion steeplechase jockey, wakes up captive on a yacht in the Mediterranean just after winning the Gold Cup. But escaping is just the beginning. . . . "Few things are more convincing than Dick Francis at a full gallop."--Chicago Tribune. Previous publisher: HarperCollins.
The accidental death of jockey Martin Stukely implicates his friend Gerard Logan, a glassblower, in a dangerous search for a missing videotape.
At his best, Francis can make you feel the hot breath of horses on the back of your neck' Michael Dobbs, Express on SundayDamaging allegations cost young Benedict Juliard his hopes of a career as a steeplechase jockey. Instead he's forced to join ranks alonside his father, a high-flying businessman battling a Dorset by-election for a street level entry into politics. The campaign gets off to a flying start. But this time the obstacles ahead aren't just dangerous - they're lethal. Horses, politics, lies and treachery. They can all carry the maximum 10lb penalty. And, as any jockey knows, a 10lb penalty can be a killer...
Halley is looking into a nobleman's permanent losing streak when he discovers a murdered jockey.
Randall Drew is sent to Moscow on a delicate investigation involving a mysterious woman who is threatening a royally-connected candidate for the Moscow Olympic Games.
With his rising culinary career threatened by an episode of food poisoning at a private affair that he had catered, Max Moreton caters an exclusive luncheon at the 2,000 Guineas horse race, a party devastated by a bomb blast that kills many of the guests.
A computerized horse-betting system falls into Jonathan Derry's hands--and unless he returns it to the rightful owners, the odds of his survival are slim to none.
Valentine, a blind, confused and dying old man, seeking his peace with God, makes his last confession to a visiting friend, Thomas Lyon, mistaking him for a priest. This puts Thomas in a moral dilemma. Wild horses wouldn’t drag from a priest the secrets of the confessional—but then Thomas is not a priest. Thomas is engaged in directing a film concerned with racing when he unexpectedly finds himself facing the old wild-horses dilemma. Should he tell what he knows from the confession—or not. He discovers that the solution to his quandary could mean the difference between life and death. His life. His death. Either way, he is in trouble. Accustomed as he is to making difficult choices and decisions, he needs to call on extreme courage and cunning to sort through the chaos and keep himself alive.
A series of bizarre incidents befalls British investigator David Cleveland when he is sent to Norway to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of champion British jockey Robert Sherman
Collection of thirteen mystery stories about horse racing, with settings ranging from a spring race meeting at Cheltenham, England, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Dick Francis is the former steeplechase jockey who retired from riding while still at the top of his profession. He wrote a racing column in the Sunday Express for seventeen years but is best known for his racing thrillers, which are worldwide bestsellers. His awards include the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger, for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre, and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Tufts University of Boston.
The acclaimed best-selling father-and-son writing team of Silks and Dead Heat deliver another gripping thriller with a thoroughbred racing backdrop. 300,000 first printing.
WITH THE STAKES SO HIGH, RACING CAN BE A DEADLY BUSINESS Chris Rankin is a doctor, a specialist in Emergency Medicine at Cheltenham Hospital, but a doctor who also has health problems. A smartly dressed man has been found unconscious at the local racecourse and is rushed to the hospital, where he subsequently dies. But who is he? Where does he come from? He had no form of identification on him, and no one claims the body. Doctor Rankin is intrigued by the nameless dead man, obsessed even, and starts asking questions. However, someone doesn’t want the questions answered and will go to any lengths to prevent it, including attempting murder. But no one else believes that someone tried to kill Chris, leaving the doctor no option but to discover who the nameless man is and why he died, preferably before following him into an early grave. The Francis brand of thrillers are bigger and bolder for a new generation! Praise for Felix Francis's novels: 'The Francis flair is clear for all to see' Daily Mail 'From winning post to top of the bestseller list, time after time' Sunday Times 'The master of suspense and intrigue' Country Life 'A tremendous read' Woman's Own
Meteorologist offered a Carribean adventure during a hurricane learns a deadly secret that follows him home to England.
Straight. No Roof But Heaven. The Evening News. The Courtship of Peggy McCoy
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