Longshot (1990)

I used to pop Dick Francis novels like tic-tacs.

As a devoted horse racing fan in my youth, I appreciated how Francis' experience as a jump jock (steeplechase jockey) enriched most of his stories with insights into that crazy world. And I loved how his hero always won in the end. (I particularly recommend these books for when the bad guys seem to be winning too many of the battles in real life.) ( )

I read this book before I was ever aware of LibraryThing or quite possible before it was even available. Dick Francis is one of my all time best authors. I find ever book to well be written and you don't want to stop reading until it is finished. The story line is always associated directly or indirectly with horse racing. I would highly recommend Dick Francis' books to anyone who loves a good mystery story. My rating is based on my knowledge of his work and how much I enjoy reading them. ( )

His agent has always known that John Kendall, writer of travel guides to harsh terrains, is impulsive. But taking an assignment because he needs money hardly seems a rash act, and off to rural England Kendall goes to interview his subject, a successful racehorse trainer. Soon enough, however, Kendall realizes that he must draw upon all his ingenuity to complete his book. In fact, the perils described in his survival manuals pale next to the dangers in rural England. "Impulse will kill you one of these days," his agent had warned. Kendall should have listened, but he didn't - not by a longshot.

This review is for the audio edition narrated by Tony Britton.

John Kendall is a travel writer specializing in survival manuals who has quit his day job to write novels. His first novel has been accepted for publication, but his advance is being rapidly depleted when he is offered the job of writing a biography for a famous racehorse trainer. The job has the added advantage of free room and board at the training stables somewhere in Berkshire. He is quickly accepted by the family of the trainer, Tremaine Vickers, and is even offered an opportunity of riding some of the horses on training runs. Not long after he has started to settle in, a missing stable girl’s body is found in woods not far from the stables. The Detective Inspector (Britton is excellent with this character’s voice) assigned to the case considers John enough of an outsider to be able to supply clues to the potential murderers’ characters and possible motives. However, John’s speculations about who the murderer could be land him in a couple of harrowing survival scenarios.

I have loved Dick Francis’s thrillers since I discovered them in about 1987, and have always known they follow a certain well-worn (and for me well-loved) track. The things that keep them from becoming redundant and boring are the characters and settings. I hadn’t ever really read them as anything other than sheer entertainment; however, I also read Hot Money earlier this year, and I was surprised on listening to Longshot at the similarity in underlying themes between these two stories. Both are more character driven than some of Francis’s other stories, and both have a similar ending. Hot Money was published in 1987, and also contains a character who must discover who in a family is a murderer. The endings of both books are ambiguous and leave one wanting to read more about the characters’ subsequent lives.

This is one of Francis’s better works. His characters are likable, the plot moves along quickly, and the research into various survival skills is meticulous. I especially enjoyed the dialogue about midway through between John Kendall and a fictional well-known author who complains that John is too young to have the experience necessary to write great books. John replies that he writes to “entertain.” One imagines Francis having similar conversations throughout his long career, with a similar response.

The audio production was done in about 1995, and I downloaded it from audible.com. The sound quality wasn’t very good in parts, but I loved Tony Britton’s narration of Hot Money, and purposely chose this audio version over the one with Kenneth Branagh. It was a great listening experience, and I recommend the book, either audio or print, to lovers of a good yarn. ( )

While not my favorite by Francis, this is still a very good book and I enjoyed rereading it. The main character, John Kendall, is a young writer thrown into the unfamiliar world of racing and right into the middle of a mystery. He is a survivor and a person who sees the connections that others sometimes miss but he figures out 'who' and 'why' too late to avoid some really serious trouble. I found the ending rather typical of Francis' books.