Francis Thriller

Operating as an undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority, Jeff is approached by the multiple-champion jockey, Dave Swinton, to discuss the delicate matter of his losing races on purpose.

Shortly after Jeff narrowly escapes a certain and grisly death, the body Dave Swinton is found in his burnt out car at a deserted beauty spot in Oxfordshire. The police think it's a suicide, but Jeff is not so sure. He starts to investigate those races that Swinton could have intentionally lost, but soon discovers instead that there are those who would prevent him from doing so, at any cost.

Jeff Hinkley, undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority, is looking into the shady activities of a racehorse trainer. Tailing his quarry through the Cheltenham Racing Festival, Jeff unexpectedly is witness to a gruesome murder. Could it be connected to the trainer's recent ban for administering illegal drugs to his horses?

Days later, more horses test positive for prohibited stimulants, a scandal that could throw horse-racing into disrepute. To limit the damage to the sport, it's critical that Jeff find the perpetrator . . . but he'll soon learn he's up against someone who will stop at nothing to prevail.

When Sir Richard Stewart, the racing authority chairman, demands Sid Halley investigates suspicious race results, he receives a firm no. Halley retired years ago, swearing he'd never go back.

But then Sir Richard is found dead and Halley receives a threatening call from a man insisting he investigates the alleged race-fixing. Halley wants to steer clear, but when his young daughter goes missing he realizes he may pay the ultimate price.

With his family in danger, how can Sid refuse? Extreme situations demand extreme solutions and Sid will do anything to get his life back, or die trying.

When Mark Shillingford commentates on a race in which his twin sister Clare, a successful jockey, comes in third, he can't help but be suspicious. He knows she should have won. Did she lose on purpose? Was the race fixed? Why would she do something so out of character?

That night, Mark confronts Clare with his suspicions, but she storms off after an explosive argument. It's the last time Mark sees her alive. Hours later, Clare jumps to her death from the balcony of a London hotel . . . or so it seems.

Devastated by her death, and overcome with guilt, Mark goes in search of answers. What led Clare to take her own life?

Or was it not suicide at all . . .?

Physics teacher (and crack shot) Jonathan Derry is given some unusual tapes to look after by a friend. They hold a computer programme which functions as a bookie-breaking betting system.
When Jonathan's friend is killed in a suspicious explosion and two thugs turn up at his house waving guns and demanding the tapes, Jonathan realises that he's been handed a whole lot more trouble.
Jonathan knows he won't be left alone unless he gives them what they want. However, he decides to play his own game. After all, he's a crack shot. He can look after himself - can't he?

Amateur jockey Lord Henry Grey decides on a whim to join the bloodstock market, transporting racehorses around the world. And when he meets the glamorous Gabriella in Italy, he is sure he's hit the good life.

That is, until a horse unexpectedly dies in transit and a colleague vanishes.

Then Grey discovers that both his predecessors also went missing in curious cirmcumstances - and begins to doubt the wisdom of his career change.

Either he turns detective or his own disappearance could be next . . .

Gene Hawkins is a fixer for his boss Mr Keeble: if Keeble has a problem, Gene fixes it. It's that simple. Sometimes it requires his Luger - mostly it doesn't.
Now Keeble has summoned Gene back from a long-overdue holiday. It seems that a very expensive stallion has been taken in Kentucky. It's the third high-value kidnapping in a few years.
Keeble wants his horse back. Gene is asked to go out there and find it. But what Gene doesn't know is that he's about to get involved with blackmailers and murderers. Looks like that Lugar will see some use...

At midnight Neil Griffon's home is broken into and he is abducted by masked men. When he wakes up, hours later, Neil discovers that 'unless he cooperates' his kidnappers will destroy his father's racing stable, his precious horses and even Neil himself.

Returning to the stables, Neil can tell no one about his ordeal, or his kidnappers' threats of violence if he does not comply with their demands.

Trapped, Neil refuses to surrender - and devises an ingenious scheme to beat his kidnappers at their own game.

Sid Halley, ex-champion jockey turned investigator, is facing his toughest test.

A number of horses have been brutally mutilated, provoking horror all round. Even Sid's friend, broadcaster Ellis Quint, has been moved to make a shocking programme about it.

But when Sid is asked to investigate, the evidence he uncovers points in a startling direction and he finds that his head must overrule his heart.

As friends and associates are angered by his discoveries, so Sid is drawn into a terrible web of conspiracy and intrigue. Escape will require all his legendary wits and cunning . . .

Diplomat Peter Darwin is returning to his childhood home: Gloucestershire. But instead of a pleasant trip down memory lane, Peter finds himself coming to the aid of a veterinary surgeon whose operating theatre is rapidly turning into an abattoir.

A string of valuable race horses have suffered unexplained deaths and the police are baffled. When Darwin looks into the mystery he finds that his connections - and his memories - help him uncover criminal activities that stretch back all the way to his childhood.

But the more Darwin uncovers, the closer he gets to a killer who just can't stop.

A beautiful Italian girl driving home in an open top sports car, a little boy playing on a south Coast beach and the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club on his way to a press reception in Baltimore. One after the other they suffer the same nightmare ordeal - kidnapping. But there is one thing connecting these particular cases. For the Italian girl is a jockey and the little boy an only son of a race horse owner. A picture of the person behind this interanational chain of crime starts to emerge - a lover of Verdi, a man with a cool and calculating brain and an aficionado of the racing world. Andrew Doublas, brought in to advise and help the vicitms and their families, proceeds with all his customary diplomacy and courage. Only to find himeself playing a dangerous part: the role usually reserved for his clients...

Ex-jockey Freddie Croft now runs a fleet of vehicles which transport racehorses across the British Isles and Europe. But when two of his drivers pick up a hitchhiker who ends up dead, Freddie's got a big problem.
First, it quickly becomes apparent that the hitcher wasn't quite what he seemed. And second, Freddie finds that his horse boxes might just be being used for moving something a lot less legal than horses.
Now he must figure out what is going on before the police, and before whoever is doing it cottons on and tries to stop him - permanently.

Bert Checkov, a racing correspondent, drunkenly confesses to fellow Fleet Street hack James Tyrone that he's been giving his readers bum tips for years. Five minutes later, Checkov's fallen out a seventh floor window.
Tyrone has a nose for a story and he's convinced there's more to his friend's death than meets the eye. When he starts digging, he discovers that many of Checkov's tips never even made it to the start.
But the deeper Tyrone gets, the dirtier and more dangerous this business appears to be. If he's not careful he'll be following Checkov to his death...

Life as a writer is colder, hungrier work than John Kendall bargained for. Not even the survival guides he's written can help him. So when notorious racehorse trainer Tremayne Vickers approaches Kendall to write his biography, it's an offer he can't turn down.
Kendall becomes immersed in his host's lifestyle: riding racehorses and getting to know the family. But then a local stable girl is found dead - and the party's over.
A killer is lurking in the shadows. And Kendall's survival tips are about to become more useful - and more deadly - than he could ever have imagined.

Rob Finn's winning streak made him one of the most sought-after steeplechase jockeys. But his subsequent collapse in form surprised no one more than himself.

As word spreads that Finn has lost his nerve, he discovers a well-managed campaign to discredit certain jockeys; in his own case, a plan assisted by horse doping.

But to find the culprits behind it, Finn will have to use all his cunning and racing know-how . . .

As an amateur jockey, Roland Britten was lucky, and as an accountant he was rigorous. He knew he was on the hate list of several fraudsters, but never thought pen-pushers got kidnapped. And not from a racecourse right after beating the odds to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Held prisoner, Britten has no idea who his kidnappers are nor why they have abducted him. Only when resourceful school headmistress Hilary Pinlock gives him the opportunity to escape is he able to seriously think about what has happened and turn his logical mind to track down his abductors . . .