Trial Run

Dick Francis

I'm not sure I believe it, but there it is: amazon has Trial Run listed as out of print. Amazing.

By now I should be inured to the pace of a Dick Francis novel, which is roughly equivalent to that of a marathon turf stakes at Ascot: in order to conserve energy, the horses start off slow, knowing they have a couple of thousand meters ahead of them; the pace picks up after you get round to the backstretch the first time, and the finish is furious. Francis spent too much time on the backs of nags at Royal Ascot to forget that, I guess. And thus you know that the first three or four chapters of a Francis mystery are likely to bog down. Stick with it; it's almost always worth the trip.

Randall Drew has been forced into retirement (like many of Francis' jockeys). In this case, it's because the jockey club has seen fit to outlaw riding with glasses, and contacts and Drew don't mix well. Drew, friend and lover to English royalty, is tabbed by the Prince to investigate shadowy claims of threats to a Royal who wants to ride in the 1980 Moscow olympics, threats that are backed up by the death of a German olympic rider, supposedly of a heart attack-- but foul play is suspected. Drew heads off to Moscow, and the fun begins.

If you know Francis, you already know whether you're going to buy this or not, I suspect. Francis mysteries are basically formulaic. Ex-jockey becomes amateur detective, ex-jockey discovers something nasty is happening at a track somewhere, ex-jockey investigates, ex-jockey gets into scrapes, ex-jockey gets out of scrapes, ex-jockey solves crime. It's good cleam mindless fun, and this one has nothing about it that stands out from the others, save its rather odd location (which seems quaint given the collapse of the cold war nowadays). Good if you like Francis, bad if you don't, and not a book I'd suggest as a jumping-off point if you don't know his work (try Odds Against or Enquiry instead, where Francis is on his home turf). ** 1/2