For his 33rd-and quite splendid-novel, Francis (Decider) adds to his usual horse-racing setting a backdrop involving feature filmmaking. As usual, though, it's murder most foul and mayhem most brilliant for this English master. In the Suffolk city of Newmarket, Thomas Lyon is for the first time directing a film featuring an American megastar. Based on a bestselling book, the movie concerns a still unexplained, 26-year-old death by hanging of a young...

Benedict Juliard is an aspiring jockey who must bypass his dreams of horse racing to help his father, George, in his quest to enter the world of politics. At 18, the reserved Benedict is asked by his father to enter into a pact: Neither of the two will do anything that could somehow hinder or destroy George's blossoming political career. Young Benedict, who has no stronger ambition than to ride steeplechase as an amateur jockey, agrees to the pact,...

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 he joined up at seventeen. But Josephine Kauri, the "first lady of British racing," has always put the horses she trains first and her family last. Tom soon finds himself strained to the breaking point with his mother and stepfather....

From a New York Times bestseller, "action, character, and color ride in perfect balance" in a thriller about a horse portraitist turned amateur sleuth (Kirkus Reviews). Dick Francis, Edgar Award–winning master of mystery and suspense, takes you into the thrilling world of horse racing. Charles Todd, a renowned painter of horses, is shocked when he turns up at his cousin Donald's house for a weekend visit to find his cousin's young wife...

This New York Times bestselling author "captures our attention and holds us spellbound" with a mystery about a horse jockey accused of fixing a race (The New York Times). Dick Francis, Edgar-Award–winning master of mystery and suspense, takes you into the thrilling world of horse racing. A closed-door enquiry has found Kelly Hughes guilty of the lowest crime imaginable by a professional jockey, throwing a race for money. He's been framed,...

With this New York Times bestseller, Dick Francis creates an intoxicating blend of the good life, fast horses, and nail-biting suspense. After a shattering accident plunges a society soiree into chaos, an unassuming wine merchant is left with the bitter aftertaste of suspicion and fear. While catering an outdoor party for a prominent horse trainer, Tony Beach hears rumors of inferior whisky being sold under premium labels. All of that is forgotten,...

Well-plotted and full of atmospheric charm, Reflex demonstrates the fine style that earned Dick Francis the title of Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. This fast-paced story of a jockey's courageous murder investigation exposes the politics and corruption at the heart of the British racing world. Philip Nore has no greater ambition than to successfully complete the last years of his career as a jockey, even if it means bending the rules...

A dead hitchhiker, empty canisters found at the bottom of several trucks, and the murder of a harmless mechanic are the bizarre events that lead ex-jockey Freddie Croft to suspect that his transport company, Driving Force, is involved in drug smuggling, or something far worse.

Featuring the gripping plot, dramatic settings and believable characters that readers have come to expect from Dick Francis, To the Hilt displays the master at the top of his form. Alexander Kinloch is definitely the black sheep of his noble family, choosing the precarious life of a painter over a lucrative job in his stepfather's brewery. But when a trusted assistant disappears with millions of pounds, Alexander is reluctantly thrust into a foreign...

By lopping off one of their feet, someone is maiming two-year-old colts, the cream of the future racing crop. When Sid Halley, jockey turned investigator, uncovers the fiend and implicates a pillar of the horse breeding community, the repercussions are horrible.