Works by
Dick Francis
(aka Richard Stanley Francis)
(Writer)
[1920 - ]

Biographical

• The Sport of Queens: The Autobiography of Dick Francis (1957)

Collections

• Four Classic Novels of Suspense (1993)
  Dead Cert, Whip Hand, Flying Finish, and Blood Sport

• The Kit Fielding Omnibus (2003)
  Break In: When steeplechase jockey Kit Fielding comes to the aid of his twin sister and her husband Bobby Allardeck, death threatens. A vicious newspaper campaign jeopardizes Bobby's career as a racehorse trainer. Combining investigations with riding winners for his patron, Princess Casilia, Kit makes some startling discoveries. But some powerful people think a jockey should mind his own business and are prepared to use violence to make sure he does....
  
  Bolt: Princess Casilia is in trouble. Her invalid husband is being threatened by a business partner andall her best runners are being wantonly destroyed-shot with a bolt. The only person she can turn to is Kit, but he has problems of his own. His fianc Danielle appears to have changed her mind. And the old Fielding-Allerdeck feud has once again violently intensified. Wherever he goes, the champion jockey seems to attract bloodshed....

• The Dick Francis Complete Treasury of Great Racing Stories (2003) by Dick Francis and John Welcome
  From his extensive experience as a Steeplechase rider, he and John Welcome — a fellow best-selling writer — have gathered 28 of the most classic horse racing stories around. The authors range from Arthur Conan Doyle and Beryl Markham to John Taintor Foote and Francis himself. Damon Runyon’s “Pick the Winner” introduces us to the unforgettable, ironically named Hot Horse Herbie and his ever-loving fiancée, Miss Cutie Singleton. In her “Pullinstown,” Molly Keane brilliantly evokes racing among the Anglo-Irish gentry. Horse loving readers will definitely judge this a winner.

• Triple Crown: Three Complete Novels (2005)
  In Dead Cert, steeplechaser Alan York knows well the dangers of the sport.
  
  But when his best friend and rival takes a fall in the middle of a race, Alan discovers that his death was no accident.
  
  Nerve is the story of a struggling young jockey named Rob-a misfit in a family of accomplished musicians-who discovers that his troubling losing streak is caused not by a lack of skill or confidence, but by something far more sinister.
  
  For Kicks finds Australian horse breeder Daniel Roke resisting an exorbitant sum of money to investigate a scandal involving drugged racehorses. But after another investigator dies mysteriously, Roke agrees to fill his shoes-and learns that men who give drugs to horses are capable of doing much worse to human beings.

Fiction

• Dead Cert (1962)
  As jockey Alan York looked at the back of Bill Davidson astride the great horse Admiral, one thing was different. Before his rival reached the last hurdle, he was dead. Alan knew racing was dangerous; he also knew Bill's death was no accident. It was the kind of knowledge that could get a man killled....

• Nerve (1964)
  Rob Finn was a bit of a misfit: a struggling young jockey in a family of accomplished musicians, a man in love with a beautiful woman who wouldn't have him -- he suddenly looked like a rider who had lost his nerve. Could it be, though, that the horses were unusually sluggish, and that there was something more sinister attempting to sabotage him...?

• For Kicks (1965)
  Australian horse breeder Daniel Roke had resisted the exorbitant sum of money offered by a suave Englishman to investigate a scandal involving drugged racehorses. But after another investigator dies mysteriously, Roke agrees to fill his shoes--and learns that men who would give drugs to horses are capable of doing much worse to human beings.

• Odds Against (1965)
  After a fall from a racehorse that permanently crippled a hand, Sid Halley joined a detective agency. 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. But it was even-money that he'd be killed before she had the chance....

• Flying Finish (1966)
  Henry Grey was considered hard to get along with. But he knew a change of job was all he needed. No more part-time office work/amateur jockey races for him. So he took a new job, air- transporting racehorses to change his luck and see the world. But he saw something quite unexpected in the cargo hold....

• Blood Sport (1967)
  When English agent Gene Hawkins told his boss he'd forego his vacation to search for millionaire Dave Teller's prized missing stallion, he didn't know his retainer would include the attentions of his boss's beautiful daughter--or Teller's seldom sober wife. Nor did he know that a trail from London to New York to Las Vegas to Califonria would eventually lead to murder....

• Forfeit (1968)
  James Tyron, a racing reporter for a London scandal sheet, knew that fellow writer Bert Chekov was a drunk, but he always thought he was an honest one. But when Bert suddenly died in an "accidental" fall from a window, Tyrone suspected the clues to his death might be found in some suspicious columns he'd written touting can't lose horses--who mysteriously failed to show up on race day. With his own professional and private lives in a chaotic jumble, Tyrone knew he'd have find a way to prove that Chekov was murdered. Be he didn't know the terrifying risk he was unwittingly about to take....

• Enquiry (1969)
  A closed-door enquiry has found a jockey guilty of the lowest possible crime--throwing a race for money. His reputation scarred, he's begun his own investigation--but asking the wrong questions just might get him killed.

• Rat Race (1970)
  Pilot Matt Shore is hired to fly four racing buffs to the track-and then forced to make an emergency landing just minutes before his plane explodes. Luckily, no one is hurt, but it isn't long before Matt realizes that he's caught up in the rat race of violent criminals who are dead-set on putting anyone who stands in their way on the wrong side of the odds.

• Bonecrack (1971)
  Violence suddenly takes the lead in the life of Neil Griffon. First his father, a stable owner, suffers a grisly accident, then Neil is brutally assaulted and abducted. The price for his freedom will mean the betrayal and deception of those who trust Griffon most. But he has no choice: A no-compromise crime czar has made an ultimatum--that his own eighteen-year old son be hired by Griffon's stables to ride the superstar horse, Archangel, in the Derby. And the young man must be trained to win. Or else....

• Smokescreen (1972)
  A movie star must give the performance of his life when he crosses paths with killers while investigating race-horse tampering in South Africa.

• Slay Ride (1973)
  When a champion jockey disappears--right before a big race and the birth of his child--Investigator David Cleveland bets on foul play.

• Knockdown (1974)
  For a generous commission, ex-prize-winning jockey Jonah Dereham agrees to bid on a special horse for a wealth American lady. Unfortunately, for him, the crunch on his skull after the auction is not the last. There's more in store, until he manages to figure out the real high-stakes game being played....

• High Stakes (1975)
  Steven Scott is relatively new to horses racing. But under the inspired guidance of a great trainer, he wins again and again. Yet just when Steven is winning at both women and horses, he discovers deceit in his own stables. And termination of the troublemaker marks Steven for his own termination....

• In the Frame (1976)
  Charles Todd is an English artist, well-known for his renderings of sleek and athletic horses. But what he sees at his brother's he cannot capture on canvas. His sister-in-law has been murdered, and his brother is the prime suspect. Todd sudenly finds himself in a dangerous manhunt as he searches for an elusive killer who paints his own picture of mayhem....

• Risk (1977)

• Trial Run (1978)
  Veteran horseman Randall Drew travels to Mosow to help the Russian royal family--but ends up caught in a world of jealousy, sabotage, and murder.

• Whip Hand (1979)
  Sid Halley, once a jockey, was now a private invesigator with only one good hand left after a horse fell on the other. His new life, though, could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories. But it was only when the wife of one of England's top trainers came to beg his help in preventing foul play at the race track that Sid Halley began to know what being haunted really was....

• Reflex (1980)
  Dick Francis is no ordinary mystery writer, and jockey Philip Nore is no ordinary hero. When Nore begins to suspect that a track photographer's fatal accident was really murder, he sets out to discover the truth and to trap the killer. Slowly, he unravels some nasty secrets of corruption, blackmail and murder--and unwittingly sets himself up as the killer's next target.

• Twice Shy (1981)
  Young physicist Jonathan Derry is given some musical tapes by a friend. But the tapes are really an elaborate, computerized horse-betting system that can make the owner a rich man--or a dead one.
  Once again, high-speed thrill master Dick Francis weaves a constantly twisting plot, a wicked villain, non-stop action, and an explosive showdown into a superb book that races to the finish line, leaving you breathless for more....

• Banker (1982)
  When young investment banker Tim Ekaterin becomes involved in the cutthroat world of thoroughbred racing, he finds his life in business blown to smithereens. For suddenly the multimillion dollar loan he arranges to finance the purchase of a champion racehorse is threatened by an apparent defect in the animal. Then, as Tim desperately searches for answers, he falls headlong into a deadly deal of violence and murder. . .

• The Danger (1983)
  Kidnapping is Andrew Douglas's business: they take them, he finds them. But it isn't so simple when Alessia Cenci, golden-girl jockey, disappears, followed by the young child of a derby winner and the senior steward of the Jockey Club. From Italy to England to Washington, D.C., Andrew's caseload is suddenly, violently overflowing. And he must fight triply hard to keep his own name off the growing list of victims. . . .

• Proof (1984)
  Wine merchant Tony Beach has expertly catered his latest society soiree, but the fun's over when a team of hit men crash the party...literally. The event leaves Tony with a bitter aftertaste of suspicion--and sets off a mystery that's an intoxicating blend of deception, intrigue, and murder.

• Break In (1985)
  Blood ties can mean trouble, as Kit Fielding, sporting hero is about to find out. His close, even telepathic kinship with his twin sister Holly draws him into a crusade to save her marriage from ruinous scandal. But his intercession, both on and off the track, proves more costly than he'd imagined, thrusting him into a deadly contest of wit and will with a ruthless media czar, a black-hearted robber baron, and an unexpectedly violent adversary far too close to home for comfort.

• Bolt (1986)
  In Kit Fielding's breakneck world of steeplechase racing, the ultimate catastrophe strikes: Someone is shooting horses. As Kit races to stop the murdering madness, everyone in his upper-crust circle becomes a suspect--the princely rival who's trying to woo his woman, the personal enemy bent on ruining his family, not to forget the black-market arms dealer whose plans could imperil the globe. Much as the civilized side of him hates to admit it, Kit wonders if he should steel himself to the use of force...

• Hot Money (1987)
  Wealthy gold trader Malcolm Pembroke has five ex-wives and nine chidren between them, all fighting among themselves. But when violent death strikes the least likable of his former spouses, Malcolm himself feels threatened, and he calls on his most capable son, Ian, the family jockey, to protect him from his nearest and dearest. While he's at it, Ian is also commissioned to delve for the final, critical clue in the darkly buried Pembroke past, simmering with the greed, hate, and vengefulness that could motivate blood to strike against blood.

• The Edge (1988)
  A high-class, transcontinental horse-racing junket should be an idyllic getaway for the super-rich.
  
  But one passenger on this train is a sociopath, a genius at blackmail and criminal corruption--and he plans to take everyone for everything they've got.

• Straight (1989)
  As Derek Franklin, an injured steeplechase jockey, nears the end of his career, his older brother, Greville, is killed, and he inherits all the confusion and danger that lay hidden in his brother's life. With peril everywhere, Derek's only hope is to identify the enemy. And he must call on all his stamina and endurance to make the final, straight run in his brother's life--without losing his own....

• Longshot (1990)

• Comeback (1991)

• Driving Force (1992)
  Transporting racehorses to the course is big business for ex-jockey Freddie Croft. But when a driver breaks a cardinal rule and picks up a hitchhiker, the results are fatal...for the hitchhiker. Freddie knows that a corpse is bad for business, especially when its trail leads to corpse number two --- and to strange nighttime stalkers and unseen conspirators who are weaving a web of deceit and danger that Freddie might never escape....

• Decider (1993)
  Architect Lee Morris has plans to restore Stratton Park racecourse to its former grandeur. But the combative Stratton heirs have violent plans of their own.

• Wild Horses (1994)
  From the acclaimed master of mystery and suspense comes a thrilling novel about the illusion of film--and the reality of murder.

• Come to Grief (1995)
  The hero of Whip Hand returns
  
  Although more than a decade has passed since the publication of Whip Hand, little time has elapsed in Sid Halley's life. Still in his mid-thirties, he remains troubled, courageous, unwilling to admit defeat to disabling injury or to corruption. Now, though, Sid faces nineties' dilemmas, dangers, and deeply demanding decisions.
  
  "I had this friend that everyone loved, and I put him on trial...I grieved for the loss of a friendship, and for the man who looked the same but was different, alien...despicable. I could more easily have grieved for him dead."
  
  Having exposed an adored racing figure as a monster, Sid must testify at the man's trial. But the morning of his appearance, a tragic suicide shatters the proceedings and jars Halley's conscience. Plagued by regret and the suspicion that there's more to the death than has yet come to light, he is catapulted into days of hard, rational detection, heart-searching torments, and the gravest of perils. Business as usual for Sid...

• To the Hilt (1996)
  From the acclaimed master of mystery and suspense comes the story of a self-imposed outcast who must refresh his detection skills in order to save himself and his family.

• 10-lb. Penalty (1997)
  A wanna-be jockey accepts a job in his father's campaign for Parliament--and realizes that politics can be the most perilous horse race of all.

• Second Wind (1999)
  The catastrophic power of a giant hurricane can raise coastal waves thirty feet high and blow through houses at devastating speeds. For TV meteorologist Perry Stuart, however, such predictions are generally hypothetical, as he chiefly predicts periods of English drizzle with bursts of heavier rain and sunshine to follow. Stuart's profound weather knowledge and accuracy has given him high status among forecasters, but no physical baptism by storm.
  
  Not, that is, until a fellow forecaster offers him a Caribbean hurricane-chasing ride in a small airplane as a holiday diversion. But a frightening accident teaches Stuart more secrets than wind speeds...and back home in Enland he faces threats and danger as deadly as anything nature can evolve.

• Shattered (2000)
  When jockey Martin Stukely dies after a fall at Cheltenham, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. Logan is a glassblower on the verge of widespread acclaim. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass and in maintaining a glassmaking furnace at never less than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, Logan is suddenly faced with terrifying threats to his business, his courage, and his life.
  
  Believing that the missing video holds the key to a priceless treasure, and wrongly convinced that Logan knows where to find it, criminal forces set out to press him for information he doesn't have. To survive, he realizes that he himself must sort out the truth. The final race to the tape throws more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined.
  
  Glass shatters. Logan doesn't ...but it's a close-run thing.

• Under Orders (2006)
  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. But this is precisely how he finds jockey Huw Walker-who, only a few hours earlier, had won the coveted Triumph Hurdle.
  
  Just moments before the gruesome discovery, Halley had been called upon by Lord Enstone to make discreet inquiries into why his horses appeared to be on a permanent losing streak. Are races being fixed? Are bookies taking a cut? And if so, are trainers and jockeys playing a dangerous game with stakes far higher than they are realistic?
  
  Halley's quest for answers draws him even deeper into the darker side of the race game, in a life-or-death power play that will push him to his very limits-both professionally and personally.

• Dead Heat (2007) by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

Short Stories

• Field of Thirteen (1998)
  With his remarkable blend of unrelenting suspense, finely tuned narrative, and lean, stylish prose, Dick Francis's thrillers have led readers to the winner's circle year after year. From his very first novel, Dead Cert, to his most recent, 10 lb. Penalty, the three-time Edgar Award winner has treated his fans to a world of equine thrills and human frailty in a string of bestsellers of unparalleled excellence. But with Field of Thirteen, Dick Francis takes on his biggest challenge yet. In this superbly crafted collection of short stories--many of them new and never before published--the settings range from a spring race meeting at Cheltenham, where a middle-aged owner falls hopelessly in love with her jockey, to a running of the Grand National interrupted by a bomb scare, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where demon drink and wilting willpower take their toll. Dick Francis's fans have a wonderful treat in store--thirteen tightly-knotted plots to marvel at, thirteen sets of classic Francis characters to admire, and thirteen stings of the tail to gasp over. Field of Thirteen proves Dick Francis is as much the master of the short story as he is of the novel.

• Win, Place, or Show (2004)
  A hard fall took hotshot jockey Sid Halley out of the horse racing game, leaving him with a crippled hand, a broken heart, and a desperate need for a new job.
  
  In Odds Against, he lands a position with a detective agency. His first case brings him up against a field of thoroughbred criminals, and the odds against him are making it a long shot that he'll even survive.
  
  Whip Hand finds Halley haunted by his glory days, although he still finds a certain satisfaction in solving a case. Hired by the wife of one of England's top racehorse trainers, Halley needs to figure out why her husband's most promising horses have been performing so poorly, and winds up haunted by more than just memories.
  
  In Come to Grief, Halley becomes convinced that one of his closest friends-and one of the racing world's most beloved figures--is behind a series of shockingly violent acts. No one wants to believe that Ellis Quint could be guilty, so the public and press are turning their wrath against Halley instead. Now he's facing opposition at every turn-and finding danger lies straight ahead.

Other

• A Jockey's Life: The Biography of Lester Piggott (1986)

See also:

• Dick Francis (1994) by Bryony Fuller

• Dick Francis: A Racing Life (2000) by Graham Lord

• The Dick Francis Companion (2003) by Dean James and Jean Swanson
  When former jockey Dick Francis turned to writing, his novels were a success right out of the gate. Now readers can learn more about his suspenseful stories and the fascinating worlds in which they take place-not only horse racing, but many others, from flying to filmmaking, from gemstones to glassblowing. Meet the man who has won three Edgar Allen Poe Awards, the title of Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master, fellowship in the Royal Society of Literature, and Malice Domestic's Lifetime Achievement Award-and add to your reading pleasure with:

  • Book-by-book synopses, little-known facts, and quotes

  • Francis's stable of memorable characters-from Sid Halley to Mr. Kitchens to Professor Guggenheim

  • The "beautiful, marvelous creatures" who run through his novels-from Admiral in Dead Cert to Zingaloo in Whip Hand

  • Websites on horseracing, the many novels, and the author himself