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some 1980s Dick Francis
Apr. 30th, 2016 06:55 pmStill reading my way through Dick Francis's novels, and I thought I'd write up some brief reviews for anyone interested in trying them.
Twice Shy, 1981
Main character: Jonathan Derry, teacher, and William Derry, racehorse trainer
A departure from Francis's usual style, with two narrators and a time lapse of fourteen years between the first and second parts. This makes for a fractured story and neither protagonist really engaged me. The plot revolves around computers, and there's a certain hilarity factor in the details (an expensive specialist computer has a whopping 32K of memory!) if you're into that. Partway through this book I realized I'd read it before, back in the 1980s, and had disliked it enough that I had no interest in trying more Dick Francis books until recently.
Banker, 1982
Main character: Tim Ekaterin, banker
The plot is mostly about horsebreeding, and you'll probably figure out what's happened before the narrator does. Ekaterin is likable and there's some fun office politics, but the book as a whole is middling.
The Danger, 1983
Main character: Andrew Douglas, anti-kidnapping consultant
Both plot and characters are unusually thin, but I found the long middle section of the book, which is basically about how people recover or don't recover from trauma, highly engaging. Also, the love interest is a woman jockey (the first in a major role, I think, in a Francis novel) whom the protagonist deeply admires as well as loves. I wouldn't call her a nuanced character exactly but she's a nice example of Francis's interest in writing competent, independent women.
Proof, 1984
Main character: Tony Beach, wineseller
My favorite of this batch, with an engaging plot about the trade in fraudulent wines and spirits and a protagonist who's anything but a tough guy. There's no het romance here except in backstory; the emotional arc could not unfairly be described as "grieving widower (Beach) meets a good man and learns to be happy again." Slashy fun, perhaps best read with a glass of wine or whiskey to hand.
Break In, 1985
Main character: Kit Fielding, jockey
I wanted to like this, if only because of the main character's name, but it didn't work for me. Fielding is a throwback to Francis's earlier super-tough, super-stoic, super-competent heroes and much too Mary Sue for me. The plot was interesting at points--there's some resonant stuff about tabloid newspapers wiretapping people's phones--but ultimately overheated and implausible.
Bolt, 1986
Main character: Kit Fielding, jockey
I skipped this one. I wasn't enthusiastic about another dose of Kit Fielding, and from the first few pages it seemed like the plot was going to be about the international arms trade. Mystery writers (even my beloved Reginald Hill) aren't usually successful at such big sweeping issues, so I stopped after about 20 pages.
Hot Money, 1987
Main character: Ian Pembroke, amateur jockey and multi-millionaire's son
A lot of Francis's protagonists have little or no family, but the Pembrokes, due to patriarch Malcolm Pembroke's five marriages, are so numerous that there's a list of them at the start of the book. This is very much a family story, revolving around the question: who's trying to kill Malcolm? Characterization isn't really Francis's great strength, but he tries hard to raise all of the many (bitter, quarrelsome) Pembrokes above stereotype, and I enjoyed this book. In particular I like its clear-eyed insistence that money can, in fact, solve many problems.
Speaking of money, I've noticed that while Francis's early protagonists struggle hard to make a living, his later ones get richer and richer. There are exceptions, of course, but it does seem to be a trend. I suppose to some extent it reflects Francis's own experiences as his books became more successful, got made into films, etc., as well as the cultural shift as Britain moved from the last depressing remnants of postwar austerity into the loadsamoney Thatcherite era. Still, I find it easier to sympathize with the broke jockeys and hard-luck commercial pilots of the early books. There's definitely a very eighties atmosphere to the eighties books; they're full of merchant bankers, property developers, and stock market speculators. Francis doesn't endorse the greed-is-good mentality by any means, but I do sometimes wish his characters had to feel the damage being done to ordinary people instead of just looking sympathetically at it.
Twice Shy, 1981
Main character: Jonathan Derry, teacher, and William Derry, racehorse trainer
A departure from Francis's usual style, with two narrators and a time lapse of fourteen years between the first and second parts. This makes for a fractured story and neither protagonist really engaged me. The plot revolves around computers, and there's a certain hilarity factor in the details (an expensive specialist computer has a whopping 32K of memory!) if you're into that. Partway through this book I realized I'd read it before, back in the 1980s, and had disliked it enough that I had no interest in trying more Dick Francis books until recently.
Banker, 1982
Main character: Tim Ekaterin, banker
The plot is mostly about horsebreeding, and you'll probably figure out what's happened before the narrator does. Ekaterin is likable and there's some fun office politics, but the book as a whole is middling.
The Danger, 1983
Main character: Andrew Douglas, anti-kidnapping consultant
Both plot and characters are unusually thin, but I found the long middle section of the book, which is basically about how people recover or don't recover from trauma, highly engaging. Also, the love interest is a woman jockey (the first in a major role, I think, in a Francis novel) whom the protagonist deeply admires as well as loves. I wouldn't call her a nuanced character exactly but she's a nice example of Francis's interest in writing competent, independent women.
Proof, 1984
Main character: Tony Beach, wineseller
My favorite of this batch, with an engaging plot about the trade in fraudulent wines and spirits and a protagonist who's anything but a tough guy. There's no het romance here except in backstory; the emotional arc could not unfairly be described as "grieving widower (Beach) meets a good man and learns to be happy again." Slashy fun, perhaps best read with a glass of wine or whiskey to hand.
Break In, 1985
Main character: Kit Fielding, jockey
I wanted to like this, if only because of the main character's name, but it didn't work for me. Fielding is a throwback to Francis's earlier super-tough, super-stoic, super-competent heroes and much too Mary Sue for me. The plot was interesting at points--there's some resonant stuff about tabloid newspapers wiretapping people's phones--but ultimately overheated and implausible.
Bolt, 1986
Main character: Kit Fielding, jockey
I skipped this one. I wasn't enthusiastic about another dose of Kit Fielding, and from the first few pages it seemed like the plot was going to be about the international arms trade. Mystery writers (even my beloved Reginald Hill) aren't usually successful at such big sweeping issues, so I stopped after about 20 pages.
Hot Money, 1987
Main character: Ian Pembroke, amateur jockey and multi-millionaire's son
A lot of Francis's protagonists have little or no family, but the Pembrokes, due to patriarch Malcolm Pembroke's five marriages, are so numerous that there's a list of them at the start of the book. This is very much a family story, revolving around the question: who's trying to kill Malcolm? Characterization isn't really Francis's great strength, but he tries hard to raise all of the many (bitter, quarrelsome) Pembrokes above stereotype, and I enjoyed this book. In particular I like its clear-eyed insistence that money can, in fact, solve many problems.
Speaking of money, I've noticed that while Francis's early protagonists struggle hard to make a living, his later ones get richer and richer. There are exceptions, of course, but it does seem to be a trend. I suppose to some extent it reflects Francis's own experiences as his books became more successful, got made into films, etc., as well as the cultural shift as Britain moved from the last depressing remnants of postwar austerity into the loadsamoney Thatcherite era. Still, I find it easier to sympathize with the broke jockeys and hard-luck commercial pilots of the early books. There's definitely a very eighties atmosphere to the eighties books; they're full of merchant bankers, property developers, and stock market speculators. Francis doesn't endorse the greed-is-good mentality by any means, but I do sometimes wish his characters had to feel the damage being done to ordinary people instead of just looking sympathetically at it.
