A Dick Francis Novel

It’s amazing what bodily injury can do for a man. A fall from a racehorse left brilliant jockey Sid Halley dangerously depressed, with a wrecked hand and the need for a new career. It was a bullet wound that helped him find one.

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.

Sid Halley had one good hand and another made of metal. Five hundred pounds of horse had landed on him, directly ending his career as a brilliant jockey - and indirectly ending his marriage to the woman he loved. He had become a private investigator, quite a good one, though his new life could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories.

Sid Halley’s career as a jockey—and his marriage—were brought to a sudden end by a heartbreaking accident. His glory days are over, but now, as a private investigator, he still finds a certain satisfaction in successfully solving a case. His latest one, though, could prove to be his undoing. Rosemary Casper, wife of an elite racehorse trainer, has begged for his help in figuring out why her husband’s most promising horses have been performing so poorly. Halley thinks she’s overreacting at first. Then hints of deceit and brutal danger make him think twice.

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.

Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator who appears in Odds Against and Whip Hand, is back and facing new dilemmas and dangers. The opening finds him having uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend whom he, and everyone else, has held in affection bordering on love.

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.

"Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon. However, three in a single afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than one eyebrow." It's the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles super-sleuth Sid Halley. Last seen in 1995's Come to Grief, former champion jockey Halley knows the perils of racing all too well but, in his day, jockeys didn't usually reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest.

From international bestselling author Dick Francis and his son Felix comes a gripping new racing thriller. Captain Thomas Forsyth’s tour of Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he’s badly wounded by 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.

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 returns to his estranged mother's house. 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. But there's another reason for the stifling tension at Kauri House Stables: Josephine is being blackmailed for a hefty sum every week - and forced to make her horses lose.

Travel writer John Kendall travels to England to interview a racehorse trainer. Soon enough, however, Kendall realizes that completing the book will be tricky at best. Because the racehorse trainer he’s tasked with interviewing has something to hide—a secret that could threaten Kendall’s life.

Chester Newton is a successful racehorse syndicate organiser and his company, Victrix Racing, is having its best year yet. When his prized horse, Potassium, wins the world-famous Epsom Derby, Chester is set to become the next big thing in British horse racing. But one phone call changes everything. Someone hiding behind a voice scrambler and an untraceable phone is demanding he fixes a race—and they’re willing to go after Chester’s family if he fails to comply.