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Rating: 
Summary: Three feel-good stories!
Review: Dick Francis is a master of the do-the-right-thing
novel! If you're looking for intriguing story
lines, believable characters and cover-to-cover
racing, you'll love these three novels
Rating: 
Summary: NERVE : A Fairly Important Person
Review: Dick Francis writes with economy. NERVE opens with the suicide of a jockey. The hero, Rob Finn, another jockey, and the others discuss the event. The suicide victim's wife has a fur coat and is not likely to welcome the commiserations of the other jockeys. They choose not to present themselves to be snubbed. The suicide victim had been obsessively tidy. Finn witnessed the suicide. The suicide victim and a trainer had been in the habit of exchanging acrimonious words. Finn's family was musical. He was the odd one there. Rob is gaining experience in steeplechase racing on bad horses. Through chance he comes in first on one of the mounts. We follow Rob making the weight. The trainer of the surprise first place finisher is in a position to give him more rides. Finn agrees to go on a television program as a jockey on the fringe of success. The term his family uses of a FIP, fairly important person, as against VIP arises in the context of putting on make-up in order to be a television guest. Then Rob moves up to be the second jockey for the trainer. Subsequently he has to stand in for the trainer's top jockey who shatters his leg. At first Finn is widely successful and then he goes through a bad three weeks where the horses he rides appear to be drugged. It is at this point that he nearly drops out of racing since he is so spiritually and psychologically low. He begins to suspect a television personality is spreading ill will in the world of jockeys and trainers and race tracks. It would take Finn a long time to forgive the man for the damage he caused. The other offerings in the three novel set are equally fine. One of the advantages of a Dick Francis book is having a hero one cares about and a plot that develops smoothly from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: NERVE : A Fairly Important Person
Review: Dick Francis writes with economy. NERVE opens with the suicide of a jockey. The hero, Rob Finn, another jockey, and the others discuss the event. The suicide victim's wife has a fur coat and is not likely to welcome the commiserations of the other jockeys. They choose not to present themselves to be snubbed. The suicide victim had been obsessively tidy. Finn witnessed the suicide. The suicide victim and a trainer had been in the habit of exchanging acrimonious words. Finn's family was musical. He was the odd one there. Rob is gaining experience in steeplechase racing on bad horses. Through chance he comes in first on one of the mounts. We follow Rob making the weight. The trainer of the surprise first place finisher is in a position to give him more rides. Finn agrees to go on a television program as a jockey on the fringe of success. The term his family uses of a FIP, fairly important person, as against VIP arises in the context of putting on make-up in order to be a television guest. Then Rob moves up to be the second jockey for the trainer. Subsequently he has to stand in for the trainer's top jockey who shatters his leg. At first Finn is widely successful and then he goes through a bad three weeks where the horses he rides appear to be drugged. It is at this point that he nearly drops out of racing since he is so spiritually and psychologically low. He begins to suspect a television personality is spreading ill will in the world of jockeys and trainers and race tracks. It would take Finn a long time to forgive the man for the damage he caused. The other offerings in the three novel set are equally fine. One of the advantages of a Dick Francis book is having a hero one cares about and a plot that develops smoothly from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: Break-neck reading
Review: My wife and I are avid mystery readers. Usually, one of us solves the mystery, then dares the other to solve it in less pages. But with Dick Francis, we haven't been able to solve until his character does. This makes for a very exiting, challenging books, real page turners.
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