Francis Thriller

Valentine, a blind, confused and dying old man, seeking his peace with God, makes his last confession to a visiting friend, Thoms Lyon, mistaking him for a priest. Thomas, in Newmarket to research for a new film, is placed in a moral dilemma. Wild horses wouldn't drag from a priest the secrets of the confessional - but then Thomas is not a priest. Should he tell what he knows from the confession, or not? He discovers that the solution to his quandary could mean the difference between life and death. WILD HORSES is a masterly mix of convincing characters, fine writing and an inscrutable and ingenious plot.

Jonah Dereham is a bloodstock agent who buys and sells horses for his clients. As an ex-jockey, it's the ideal quiet life - until Jonah is attacked by thugs out to sabotage his business.

Unfortunately for them, Jonah's a man with a steely resolve. He's determined to find out who is trying to ruin him, and why.

But staying honest is more dangerous than Jonah could have imagined.

And with his horses, his business and his own life on the line, Jonah must hit back - before he's taken down for good . . .

Champion jockey Sid Halley retired from racing when his hand was smashed in a fall. Now he works as a private detective - which is proving to be no less dangerous to life and limb.

Recuperating from a bullet wound, Sid is asked by his father-in-law to look into some potentially shady activity involving Seabury racecourse and a ruthless property dealer.

But the closer Sid gets to those determined to get their hands on Seabury, the more he finds himself in harm's way. The odds are against him - but that's exactly when Sid is at his best ....

Tony Beach will do anything for a quiet life. But when a party to celebrate the end of the racing season ends in eight violent deaths, he is drawn reluctantly into the subsequent investigation.
Meanwhile, the police, having evidence of the sale of illicit alcohol at a local club, ask for Tony's help in closing it down. Thanks to his intervention, Tony comes to the attention of the criminal underworld.
And that's when he reluctantly realizes that the deaths and the illicit alcohol are connected.
Tony doesn't want to be a hero. But if the choice is that or dying...

Jockey Kit Fielding's patron, Princess Casilia, is in trouble. Her invalid husband is being threatened by a ruthless business partner who wants to use the firm to manufacture arms. At the same time, some of the Princess's best horses are being killed - shot by a bolt.
The only person the Princess can turn to is Kit - but he has his own problems. Between riding winners (and saving his impending marriage) Kit has somehow to find out and stop who is slaughtering the horses.
But, as he's about to discover, the killer has more than horses in his sights.

Free choice? There's no such thing, according to Lee Morris. Choice is pre-ordained by your personality. Stratton Park racecourse faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Lee is slowly sucked into the turmoil, unwillingly on the surface but half-understanding the deep compulsions that influence his decisions. One road leads to safety, another to death. How do you know which is which? Lee's choices and their consequences bring deadly results, but the road out of the quicksand is there, if he can find it. Horses and racing are familiar ingredients, but this time there are also children, houses, roots and decisions. Danger? Naturally. Stratton Park racecourse is worth multi-millions, and all of the Stratton family are playing to win.

When inventor Steven Scott abruptly fires his winning trainer Jody Leeds, the racing world is shocked and disgusted - though not quite as angry as Leeds, who swears revenge on his former friend.
Now, Steven is not only in fear of losing everything - but also his life. Somehow, he must prove to the world that Leeds is a vicious crook - or die trying.

Pilot Matt Shore now spends his days ferrying high-class passengers between English race courses. one eventful trip ends with his plane exploding in a ball of fire, Matt knows he's not that unlucky.

When the police confirm it was a bomb, Matt realises he has a problem. One of his passengers must have been the target - the question is who?

Matt to find out fast - because he's scheduled to ferry the same people over the coming weeks.

Can Matt stay alive long enough to stop the bomber?

This is a brilliant collection of thirteen short stories, written by the Master of Crime. Although some of the stories have been published before, all but one of them have had a very limited circulation and the vast majority of Dick Francis fans will be reading them for the first time. Ranging from the National Hunt Festival at Cheltenham to Churchill Downs in America, each of the stories contains an array of five-star Dick Francis characters, a brilliant plot to marvel over and an ingenious sting in the tail to gasp over.

'Admiral met the fence perfectly. He rose to it as if flight were not only for birds. And he fell.'

Alan York's friend, jockey Bill Davidson, was killed in Admiral's fall. After the race, York visits the fence and discovers a coil of wire lying beside the fence post and signs of where the wire had been attached.

The fall was no accident - but murder.

Unable to convince the police of this, York is forced to turn amateur sleuth and is soon on the trail of a ruthless gang of race-fixers.

Seventeen-year-old Benedict Juliard's ambitions of becoming a steeplechase jockey are dashed when he's falsely accused of taking drugs. For his estranged father, however, this is an opportunity.
A wealthy businessman running for a parliamentary by-election in Dorset, Juliard Senior needs all the help he can get - especially when the campaign moves from mudslinging to something more deadly.
Now young Benedict has to grow up fast, not only to find out who is trying to harm his father's chances of election but also to keep him alive long enough to stay in the race...

Malcolm Pembroke didn't get rich without making a few enemies - not least the five wives and nine children left like wreckage in his wake.
But when Moira, his fifth wife, is murdered and Malcolm believes that someone is out to get him, he knows of only one person he can turn to: his estranged son Ian.
Ian - an amateur jockey - wants nothing to do with his father until it becomes clear the old man's life is in danger. And worst of all the evidence suggests it's from someone in the family . . .

Ex-steeplechaser Randall Drew is reluctantly off to pre-Olympic games Moscow, as a favour to royalty. One of the blue bloods is destined to compete in the games and there are concerns - both of safety and of scandal - that only Drew, with his racing connections, can sort out.

On arriving - speaking no Russian and wishing he were back home - Drew is supposed to identify and contact one Alyosha to clear up the scandal. Instead, he finds himself tailed by the KGB and embroiled in foiling a terrorist plot - or die trying.

Derek Franklin, injured steeplechase jockey, is at end of his career when he is thrust into chaos following the accidental death of his brother Greville who was an importer of semi-precious stones.

Steeplechase jockey Kit Fielding has just ridden another winner for his patron - the Princess - when his distraught twin sister Holly comes to him with terrible news. A newspaper is printing stories which will put her husband, Bobby Allardeck, and his stables out of business.

Putting aside the age-old Fielding-Allardeck feud, Kit decides to try to find out who is behind these cruel stories.

This, he quickly discovers, upsets many ruthless and powerful people who'll do anything to protect themselves.

But this is family and Kit will risk everything - including his neck - to find the truth.

When Kelly Hughes rides the favourite into second place, he gets penalized for his trouble. Not only has he lost the race, but also his licence, as the Jockey Club suspends him - believing he threw the race.

Knowing that the problem lay with the horse's performance, not his own, Kelly suspects he was framed and sets about finding out who has set him up.

But the closer he gets to the perpetrators, the more danger he finds himself in. Now there's more than his reputation and career at stake.

There's also his life . . .