To the Hilt

Rating:
Summary: Not All Aristocrats Are Snobs.
Review: Alexander Kinloch is the twenty-nine-year old son of the deceased fourth son of an earl. He lives alone in a hut on a windy mountainside in Scotland spending his time painting and playing the bagpipes. Alexander receives word from his mother in London that his stepfather is dying. His stepfather is Ivan George Westering, who owns a brewery and is a pillar of the British Jockey Club. Before leaving to see Ivan and his mother, Alexander is beaten by four thugs who ransack his hut. In London he learns that there is a discrepancy in the accounts of Ivan's brewery and a large sum of money is missing. Francis has created another likeable protagonist in Alexander Kinloch and a memorable supporting cast of helpers and villains. Horses are only a peripheral issue in this book which is the author's thirty-fifth novel. Some interesting touches of medieval history add spice to a fast-paced story.

Rating:
Summary: An honorable, non-horsey protagonist
Review: Alexander Kinloch, the hero-narrator of Francis' 1996 thriller, is not a horseman. A painter, he enjoys a solitary life in a windswept hut on his aristocractic uncle's Scottish estate. But his solitude is disrupted first by news of his stepfather's heart attack and then by four thugs who attack him and ransack his hut.

Kinloch has never been close to his stepfather, Ivan, but quickly finds himself embroiled in his plight, up to his neck in bank officers and lawyers and entrusted with hiding a race horse and a jewel-encrusted trophy. All of which he accepts with stoic aplomb, despite the increasing risk to his own neck and the disruption of his life.

There's not much racing in this one, but Francis' hero does plenty of quick thinking and maneuvering and takes plenty of knocks as he defends the family's honor "to the hilt," ferreting out a murderer in the process.

Francis keeps things moving and invests his characters with complex and very British codes of honor. His fans will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: How to improve this book: Making the pages of chocolate
Review: All of Dick Francis' stuff is great, and here's no exception. It's a quick read and nobody at a university is going to assign it as fine literature. Yet, Francis deftly involves issues of personal character in the presence of money and titles, not unlike Shakespeare's greatest hits.
Continually underscoring the two human races: the decent and the indecent (good and evil are too pure of terms for true-to-life characters), the author always emphasizes through his first-person account the stiff-upper-lip culture and maturity of England's ideal man.
Inventing tasteful ways to present sex and gore both, Dick Francis shows off good writing skills for even a jaded modern audience.
This tale combines all of the above and spices it with Scottish landscape, royal jewels, treachery, jealousy, castles, a National Trust busy-body, and of course...horses.

Rating:
Summary: How to improve this book: Making the pages of chocolate
Review: All of Dick Francis' stuff is great, and here's no exception. It's a quick read and nobody at a university is going to assign it as fine literature. Yet, Francis deftly involves issues of personal character in the presence of money and titles, not unlike Shakespeare's greatest hits.
Continually underscoring the two human races: the decent and the indecent (good and evil are too pure of terms for true-to-life characters), the author always emphasizes through his first-person account the stiff-upper-lip culture and maturity of England's ideal man.
Inventing tasteful ways to present sex and gore both, Dick Francis shows off good writing skills for even a jaded modern audience.
This tale combines all of the above and spices it with Scottish landscape, royal jewels, treachery, jealousy, castles, a National Trust busy-body, and of course...horses.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful mystery
Review: Although I've read a few of his mysteries, Francis's books have never really captured me. To the Hilt has made me re-think my opinion. Alexander Kinloch, artist and black sheep is called by his step-father to help save the family business, a well-known brewery. Involving an angry step-sister, embezzlement, a wife in name only, and a slightly out-of-kilter uncle who happens to be Lord of the Manor with a very valuable heirloom; this mystery keeps things percolating and challenges the intellect. This one's a lot of fun and I wish I could have seen Alexander dragged into another mystery.

Rating:
Summary: unputdownable
Review: Certainly one of Mr. Francis's best books ever. I very much enjoyed the Scottish highland discriptions. I only wish the main caracters in his books wouldn't become beaten up quite so badly every time.

Rating:
Summary: One Of His Best
Review: Dick Francis always tells a good story, but this one is especially good. The characters are warm and lively and easy to get to know.. The mystery is cleverly developed with a satisfying conclusion. I really liked the main character, Alexander Kinloch. I know it's not Francis' style to continue characters from one book to another, but I wish he would make an exception in this case. I would like to read more about Kinloch in future books

Rating:
Summary: Dick Francis writes movingly of genius and loneliness.
Review: Dick Francis in writing "To the Hilt" has once again touched a familiar chord. Francis writes of the competent man being caught up in a swirl of events that are not of his own making, yet he must rise to meet the challenges. The hero's genius in painting is understandable and the loneliness that comes of being driven to create art is touching.

Rating:
Summary: To the Hilt-No guilt
Review: Dick Francis's To the Hilt, May be read without any guilt -- The man's at the top of his game, Though his heroes are always the same-- This one's named Al, he's a Scot, Who gallops through the usual plot -- Some thugs search him out; beat him up, To lay hands on the King Alfred Cup -- The cup causes all sorts of bother, In service of his ailing step-father -- Who's moping around in a funk, 'Cause his treasurers gone;done a bunk -- His brewery's money is gone, Can Al help the plant carry on? -- He hides his kinsmen's chief pleasures, The cup, hilt and some other treasures -- Among them a thoroughbred horse; You knew there was one, of course -- Does he put all the bad guys to rout? Well, read the book and find out! -- If mystery tales are your style, This one's a guaranteed smile

Rating:
Summary: Dick Francis near his (off-track)best.
Review: Don't be misled by the relative lack of attention paid to Dick Francis' latest outing. This is the master returning to the top of his trade. Read it.