"Even Money," the third collaboration between Dick Francis and his son Felix in the last three years, is another in the long line of Dick Francis horse track mysteries, and it is a good one. Longtime fans of Dick Francis might react differently to "Even Money," of course, believing that it suffers in comparison to the author's earlier work. I, on the other hand, having only ever read one other Dick Francis novel, and that many years ago, experienced "Even Money" more as a standalone novel. And as such, I enjoyed it.

Ned Talbot is thirty-seven years old and has been a bookmaker all his life, having inherited the family business from his grandfather, Teddy Talbot. In fact, when Ned sets himself up to do business at various tracks, the board above his head still says "Trust Teddy Talbot" on it. With the help of Luca, a computer whiz who accepts and manages each day's bets, Ned makes a decent living for himself and Sophie, his mentally fragile wife. He may be doing quite well but Ned thinks often about how bookmakers are despised by most everyone in the racing world, even those who make their own livings from the services he and his fellow bookies provide.

Ascot is not one of Ned's favorite racetracks and, in fact, he seldom enjoys setting up shop there. But because his grandfather had considered participation at Ascot to be one of the firm's best marketing techniques, Ned and Luca are there hoping to make the best of things. What Ned does not bargain for is the stranger who approaches him at the end of the day to claim that he is Ned's father, a man Ned had thought dead for thirty-six years. Just one hour later, as Ned and Peter Talbot make their way to Ned's car, they are assaulted by a knife-wielding thug and Ned begins a frantic race of his own, one he has to win if he is to stay alive.

It is relatively common for bookies to be robbed of their day's earnings before they leave the track, but Ned senses that what happened to him and his father is no ordinary mugging. What he discovers in his father's rucksack (30,000 pounds in cash, counterfeit horse passports, an electronic device that reminds him of a television remote, and ten little devices each the size of a grain of rice) confirms for Ned that his father was specifically targeted by the man who attacked them. Now he wants to know why.

Even before the sudden appearance of his father, Ned has a lot going on in his world. Sophie is bipolar and her illness has gotten so bad that she has again been institutionalized for treatment; Luca is threatening to quit the firm unless Ned makes him a full partner; and the grandmother who raised him is suffering from dementia and living in a nursing home. Via these subplots, the reader comes to see Ned Talbot as a real human being who has managed to get himself in way over his head - and that is half the fun of "Even Money."

I particularly enjoyed the novel's details of how the world of bookmaking works, how odds are set, how bookies cover themselves with side bets of their own (a bit like insurance companies cover themselves by reinsuring their risk through other companies), and how they view themselves and those with whom they do business. I have not been a fan of this type of novel in the past but that little bit of "inside information" makes it more likely that I will seek out other Dick Francis novels now.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )

Even Money by Dick And Felix Francis

Teddy Talbot is a bookie. He laments over the lack of respect that bookies get in the UK. This is a tale of his job, the travails he faces, his wife’s mental illness and his families curious history.

I was initially annoyed at the painstaking detail of the world of the legal bookie. It did end up setting the appropriate stage. Teddy was painted as an ordinary guy who faced some extraordinary events with creativity and panache. The setting of the UK horse racing community was colorful and well portrayed. I enjoyed the detailing of how high tech the security of the racing community is. The plot was intricate without being painfully so. It held my interest and you didn’t sniff out all of the nuances until the end.

I recommend the book, it was a good mystery. ( )

Even Money by Dick Francis with his son, Felix, is the latest Dick Francis mystery/thriller to be published ((2009). I believe it is the third book written by Dick Francis with his son’s input. I have not read the other two.

As with all Dick Francis books, this one features the world of horse racing in the plot, in this case with the protagonist being the owner of an on-track betting concern. It opens on the day he discovers that his father, whom he had though dead for the past 36 years, shows up at the end of a racing day and introduces himself. Other characters in the book include a computer geek assistant, a bi-polar wife, an unsympathetic policeman, and the usual Dick Francis “heavies.”

I tried very hard to like this book because I’m a huge Dick Francis fan. In fact, I have all of his books except Sport of Kings. I’ve even read most of them more than once. I realize they aren’t great literature, but I’ve always found them to be enjoyable, satisfyingly quick reads. But this one left me flat. Since it is the first new book of his I’ve read since he started working with his son, I hope I’m not feeling badly about the book simply because of that. I’d feared Francis wouldn’t write anything else after his wife died, and was pleased when he started collaborating with Felix. The plot didn’t move very quickly, and most of the writing was dull, lacking the edge I expect from a Dick Francis novel. There were also annoying inconsistencies in the story line that I don’t think Mary Francis would have let slip by. I’m surprised the editors didn’t catch the most egregious one.

I certainly recommend this book to any Dick Francis fan, but to anyone new to the author, it isn’t his best by far. Read one of his earlier novels, such as “Whip Hand,” then once you’re a fan, read this one to compare it to his best. 3 stars, though I would have only given it 2½ if it weren’t Dick Francis. ( )

The days of Reflex, Odds Against, Hot Money and other books from Dick Francis' prime appear to be gone and, given the last book and this one, the addition of son Felix to the writing team doesn't seem to have helped at all.

Cardboard characters—ranging from the trite (the police inspector who hates bookies because his father gambled too much) to the absurd (the bookie's assistant who has the skills to hack casually into the local ISP's servers via his laptop).

Nothing inventive about the plot—other than it hinges upon idiotic technical assumptions (for one, the "secret" frequency of horse RFID tags...oh wait...it's 134.2 kHz).

And I do have problems when authors try to hinge major plot elements on computers but don't bother to learn about them. "Give it a virus that causes it to chase round and round making useless calculations of prime numbers. That uses up all its RAM..." Umm, no, it wouldn't; calculating primes uses processor time but a trivial amount of memory. If you want to use up all a computer's RAM, your program would simply tell the computer to cough it up... ( )

Bookmaker Ned Talbot is astonished when his father, whom he had thought long dead, turns up one day and is quickly murdered. Now mysteries both new and old threaten his peace--and his life.

Far from Francis's best, but worth reading. ( )