Odds Against / Flying Finish / Blood Sport / Rat Race

By Dick Francis

1984

First Published

4.38

Average Rating

596

Number of Pages

18H06M

Audio Length

Four of the early novels by Dick Frances. Odds against is the first of the Sid Halley mysteries. Odds against (1965): Sid Halley, an injured jockey, becomes a private eye and carries out some work for his father-in-law, who believes a man is trying to financially ruin Seabury racecourse, so that it can be sold to property developers. Flying finish (1966): Lord Henry Grey was an amateur jockey and pilot. But when he decides to abandon his desk-bound job for an active career in the bloodstock market, he finds that there is more to couriering valuable horses around the world than he had ever suspected. Blood sport (1967): Gene Hawkings must travel to Kentucky, on the orders of his boss, to spend three weeks looking for kidnapped stallions. But before he leaves, Gene's survival skills are called on closer to home, catapulting him into a maelstrom of blackmail and murder. Rat race (1970): Matt Shore is a substitute pilot assigned to fly four racing buffs to the track. They're nervous, but Matt's not. That is, until he manages an emergency landing minutes before the plane explodes. Matt doesn't think anything else can possibly go wrong. Then he finds himself caught up in a rat race of danger that puts him on the wrong side of the odds....

Avg Rating

4.38

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

48%

4 STARS

42%

3 STARS

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Dick Francis

Author · 54 books

Dick Francis, CBE, FRSL (born Richard Stanley Francis) was a popular British horse racing crime writer and retired jockey. Dick Francis worked on his books with his wife, Mary, before her death. Dick considered his wife to be his co-writer - as he is quoted in the book, "The Dick Francis Companion", released in 2003: "Mary and I worked as a team. ... I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary's family always called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together." Praise for Dick Francis: 'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror ' Dick Francis' fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph ' Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott. During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time. Series: * Sid Halley Mystery * Kit Fielding Mystery