When Dick Francis’s wife passed away several years ago and he announced that he wouldn’t be writing any more novels, there was speculation that Mary Francis was really writing the books instead of her husband. It’s possible that she contributed to them, of course, but despite Francis’s “retirement”, here’s a new novel from him, and to me it seems to be written in the same style, with the same voice, as all the other Dick Francis novels I’ve read.
UNDER ORDERS features the return of former-jockey-turned-private-eye Sid Halley, who starred in several of Francis’s earlier novels. He’s in good form here as he investigates the murder of a jockey who may or may not have been deliberately losing races. The suicide of one of the suspects seems to close the case, but Sid (and the reader) know right away that the so-called suicide is really another murder. Sid’s poking around leads him to the on-line gambling industry and puts him and some of his loved ones in deadly danger before he sorts everything out and tracks down the killer.
This is a tightly plotted, well-written novel with some nice, harrowing action scenes and the usual vividly rendered horse-racing background. I enjoyed it more, in fact, than the last several novels before Francis “retired”. I hope this isn’t a one-shot return and that there’ll be more Dick Francis novels in the future.
3 comments:
I mentioned the return of Dick Francis to my writing group last night and it seemed to be "common knowledge" that his wife had written his books. Common knowledge is often wrong, of course. I don't think I've ever read one of his, although I did see a couple of the movies.
I actually don't know how much Dick Francis' wife was involved in the writing. Publicly anyway they always said she was his researcher. She may very well have read his work and commented on it.
I enjoyed "Under Orders" quite a bit and liked it more than the last couple, "Shattered" in which I thought the story was dumb but the glass-blowing was interesting and "Second Wind." "Second Wind" just didn't seem to work, to my mind.
I hope he's back for more books as well.
Best,
Mark Terry
www.markterrybooks.com
We just finished listening to Under Orders, and it was my first exposure to Mr. Francis. It will be my last. Not that the man does not write well, but the ending was very unsatisfying. Not to give anything away, but Halley's behavior in his flat did not make any sense at all. Feh. We are going back to Stuart Kaminsky with all haste.
Post a Comment