it's summer. i need to read a dick francis book. this combines the cold war, horses, and the olympics: how can it not win?

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Not my favorite Dick Francis ever, but the Soviet stuff was really interesting. ( )

An old school Cold War/KGB plot, set in 1978. Loved it, and finished it in two days. Must recommend. ( )

rumors of danger at the Olympics to member of Royal family leads to terrorist discovery in Moscow

one of the better Francis books --not involving the hero getting tortured or horribly injured, though a minor villain does die unpleasantly. The hero is a former jockey banned from riding because he wears glasses. He is asked to look into a threat that if a man related to the royal family rides in the Moscow Olympics, he will be killed by someone named Alyosha, as a German rider was at an event in England. The hero goes to Moscow has some helpful meetings with Soviet racing people who trust him because he is a horseman (the paranoid atmosphere of the late Soviet period is well done) --despite the negative tone about the Soviets, they actually help in dealing with the conspiracy, which turns out to be a forerunner of later Islamist terrorism in those parts. ( )

Veteran horseman Randall Drew travels to Mosow to help the Russian royal family--but ends up caught in a world of jealousy, sabotage, and murder.