Wine merchant Tony Beech had life all figured out when his world caved in. Now he's marking time, selling wine and grieving the death of his young wife and unborn child. But when a routine wine delivery ends in disaster, Beech finds himself playing a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Good, solid Francis - break out the wine and cheese and curl up with it today. ( )

This was my first Dick Francis story and it started my enchantment with his characters. Tony is just an ordinary business man so how did he get into this mess and how does he get out? ( )

Another paperback I inherited from my dad. I'd never read Dick Francis before ... this was pretty good. I'd read more. It's part of the "Horseracing Mystery Series", but it really didn't have much to do with horseracing. ( )

One of my favorite Francis books. I like Beach - I could almost imagine being him and easily imagine knowing him. Also, only a few nasties and not a lot of time spent with them - most of the book time was spent building relationships between the good guys. I don't like it when a book spends all its time either following the bad guys around and dwelling lovingly on their actions or having the good guys deal with the bad ones (ok, relates mostly to mysteries, where good guy/bad guy is a reasonably accurate distinction in most of them). One reason I like Francis is that he does spend time developing his good guys, even the ones (the vast majority) who only appear in one book. ( )

Proof, Flying Finish, Banker, and For Kicks by Dick Francis cover the horse industry and (in order of title) wine and whiskey, air transport, investment banking, and doping investigation. Doping in its many forms and findings is actually center to both Banker and For Kicks. Dick Francis often uses sadistic villains but his heroes are engaging and end their fights quite battered unlike some heroes who seem untouchable.

I know that these books show their age, though not as much as some of his books, being copyrighted in 1965, 1966, and 1985 but I think the stories are strong enough to hold up. I just don't try to picture the characters *exactly* as they are described.

I recommend these books to mystery lovers and horse enthusiasts.