Dick Francis

"A man doesn't shoot himself in the head in broad daylight with no warning. But Art Matthews did. Pip Pankhurst found his shin bone sticking out of his leg, and his rides over for the season. Grant Oldfield needed help. The kind a psychiatrist gives. It was as though there was a hoodoo on the whole jockey tribe." -- Cover.

When he is hired to write the biography of a racehorse trainer, author John Kendall encounters more than he bargained for as he stumbles into a web of danger and death in rural England.

Ned Talbot has worked all his life as a book-maker so he knows not to expect any sympathy from the punters as they count their winnings at Royal Ascot. When a man steps forward from the crowd claiming to be his father, Ned is thrown into turmoil. He'd been told that both his parents died when he was a baby. Barely an hour later, his father stabbed by an unknown assailant. Before dying, he warns Ned to "be very careful." But of whom? Of what? Ned finds...

Jim Tyrone is commissioned to do a sports story on the Lamplighter horse race. He suddenly finds himself involved in a mysterious death and a fight against the bookmakers who have been tampering with the odds.

The murder of his cousin's wife involves an English painter in the pursuit of an Australian art forging gang.

Derek is thrust into trouble and danger after the death of his brother. His only hope of survival is to identify the enemy.

Geoffrey Mason is well known (as "Perry" Mason) among the pro riders, including Steve Mitchell and Scot Barlow--arguably the two top pros. So when Scot Barlow is murdered--with Mitchell's pitchfork nonetheless--Geoff finds himself pulled into the case as a junior barrister.

As he lies on his deathbed, Valentine Clark harbors a secret he is desperate to be rid of. In his delirium he makes his last confession to Thomas Lyon, a visiting film maker shooting a movie on racing, whom he mistakes for a priest. Wild horses could not drag the secret from a priest, but in Lyon's case silence is merely an option, especially now that the secret has put his life in danger.

Edward Lincoln is a famous British actor, but when his godmother becomes worried that someone is interfering with her racehorses, her request for help brings him to South Africa.

Foreign Office British diplomat, Peter Darwin uses all of his skills to solve a veterinary surgeon's race-horse nightmare.