Banker

An old favorite, being re-read now as part of an LT shared read of Dick Francis' horsey mysteries. This one spotlights junior merchant banker Tim Ekaterin, who convinces his firm to lend millions of pounds to buy a champion racehorse to be put out to stud. When potential disaster looms, Ekaterin has to turn detective to solve the mystery and save his firm and the stallion's owner from financial disaster.

One of the reasons I've always enjoyed Dick Francis is the glimpse he gives into another world — in this case that of merchant banking. (I think the equivalent US term is investment banking, though there may be subtle differences between the two that I'm unaware of.) And on the horse side, we get a look at how a stud farm works — or show more in other words where all those lovely racehorses featured in other Francis books come from.

And as always with Francis, the characters are perhaps even more compelling than the mystery. Oliver Knowles, the stud farm owner, and his teenage daughter, Ginnie, are sympathetic characters who are easy to root for. And the range of secondary characters are unique enough to have fully formed personas for the reader, even if we don't spend a lot of time with them. Tim himself is the usual Francis prototype protagonist: Stoic, practical, mostly unemotional in that stereotypical "stiff upper lip" British way. And true to form for Francis, our hero is put into great physical danger and does not come out unscathed.

Just as in real life, Francis never guarantees a happy ending, though most readers will find it more than satisfactory. Even knowing who the villain was, I never get bored re-reading this book because the characters and the world-building are first-rate. Many thanks to Karen for choosing this as our first read of the year. show less

Merchant banker Tim Ekaterin works for a firm that bears his family name. The family talent for figures skipped Tim’s father, who was better at gambling away wealth than accumulating it. Thus, some firm members are wary about whose footsteps Tim will follow - his father’s or those of the company’s founder. As confidence in Tim’s ability grows, he is given an opportunity to evaluate a potential investment in a stud farm’s purchase of a champion racehorse. It seems a safe bet, until something goes horribly wrong. Inevitably, Tim will be held responsible for the loss of the firm’s investment, until an even more horrifying possibility emerges. What if the looming disaster isn’t just bad luck? If it’s the result of deliberate show more action, then a chillingly evil actor is behind it.

As is typical for a Francis novel, the plot is nicely twisty. Francis’s romance subplots are hit or miss for me, and this one is a miss, largely because I don’t buy Tim’s boss’s acceptance of the mutual attraction between his wife and Tim and his trust that their relationship will remain platonic. It’s a triangle not unlike Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. The book also has a higher body count than many other Francis adventures, and one of the deaths is especially gut-wrenching. show less

Written in 1982, this was an excellent thriller. Tim Ekaterin is an investment banker in the firm begun by his grandfather. He was raised by parents more interested in partying than banking. After his father's death, his mother's gambling habit drove the family into bankruptcy. His uncle agrees to bail his mother out if Tim works for the bank.

Not expecting much more than to fulfill his agreement with his uncle, Tim finds that he has the talent to be an excellent merchant banker. He is happy learning under his mentor Gordon and being quietly in love with Gordon's wife.

When Gordon goes through a medication issue in his treatment for Parkinson's Disease, Tim takes over for him until he is ready to come back. During his time as head, he show more convinces his firm to lend money to a young cartoonist that several other banks have turned down. The cartoonist's quick and major success not only gives Tim confidence in his judgment but gives him the reputation as a lucky man.

An outing with the Chairman and Gordon and his wife Juliet to the horse races brings a new opportunity to Tim and the bank. Tim sees Sandcastle win a stunning victory and also meets and saves the life of a faith healer whose patients are horses.

When a trainer comes to Tim to ask for financing to purchase Sandcastle to put him to stud, Tim convinces the bank to come up with the eight million that are needed. Tim spends time at the breeding farm and meets the owner's young daughter. He becomes friends during his frequent visits.

When the owner calls some time later, he has a problem. It seems that Sandcastle's foals are showing a much higher than average number of birth defects. Sandcastle's problems as a stud threaten to not only bankrupt the trainer but cause a substantial loss for the bank too.

Tim has only a short period of time to figure out if the problem is with Sandcastle or if someone is manipulating things for their own purposes. And when the trainer's young daughter is murdered the stakes go even higher.

This was an excellent story. Tim is a wonderful main character who is both smart and honorable. The prose isn't flowery, but the emotional intensity is there. Simon Prebble did a wonderful job of bringing Tim Ekaterin to life. show less

Banker by Dick Francis is a 1982 publication.

A nice change of pace!

Tim Ekaterin is an up- and- coming merchant banker who goes out on a limb to front a huge amount of money to Oliver Knowles, a stud-farmer, to buy a champion horse named Sandcastle.

Tim becomes friends with Oliver and his daughter while learning a great deal about horse breeding, in the process. Tim makes other acquaintances in the horse world, including an ‘animal healer’, a man with a reputation for bringing animals back from the brink of death.

Things are looking good for Tim, career wise, and his office politics are improving along with his success. His personal life could be better, though, as he pines for the wife of one of his colleagues.

Unfortunately, show more things begin to go awry when a veterinarian is murdered amid Sandcastle’s foals being born with deformities or dying. The race is on to discover who is behind the murder, and to figure out what is going on with Sandcastle’s progeny. The horse is insured to the hilt for everything imaginable- but this- which means Oliver will most likely lose everything…

This book is so different from the ones I’ve been reading recently, I suppose that could be part of why I found it so appealing. The horse world has always harbored a dark underbelly and Francis made a career writing about it. This book is a bit different from other Francis novels, I think, as a merchant banker is the main character, a man who only had a moderate amount of knowledge about the industry, only becoming involved because of the bank’s business dealings. Francis, a former jockey, displays his personal insider view in these books. This novel offers quite an education about the breeding process.

I found Tim likeable and although some of the plot points were a bit far-fetched, I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery and am wondering why all my Dick Francis books have been languishing on my shelf collecting dust for so many years.


Because I’m culling through my paperbacks, making a few tough choices about what to keep and what to donate to the library, I was seriously considering letting the Dick Francis collection go. Now, I think I’ll hold onto these books for a little while longer!

4 stars show less

As a jockey, Dick Francis won 350 races, but he probably earned more writing crime fiction than he did riding. In Banker (1982), he shows us that the real money in the thoroughbred industry is not in the prize money but in the stud fees.
Tim Ekaterin is a merchant banker who arranges loans for buying expensive stallions. He is called in to help a stud farm owner whose star stallion has been producing foals with severe birth defects. Unless the stud farm can be cleared of incompetence and malfeasance, the client will go out of business and default on the loan to Tim approved.
His investigation uncovers a labyrinthian plot, and along the way, he meets an attractive pharmacist. Tim is a typical Francis hero, an unemotional man who is often show more underestimated and who, in the end, must learn to loosen up.
Conclusion: Banker is another satisfying whodunit by a master craftsman. show less

Dick Francis was the master of writing the everyman hero: ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. It's part of the appeal for me. He always found a way to combine an interesting topic with characters you could root for, and worked them seamlessly into the world of horse racing. This time, we step into the world of finance with merchant banker Tim Ekaterin. As Tim takes on more responsibility at his family's banking house to cover for a sick colleague, he takes a chance on financing a prize-winning race horse. What follows takes on twists and turns, with some surprising revelations.

The good: I liked Tim. Like most Francis protagonists, he was a good guy, and you want everything to work out for him. The mystery kept me show more guessing. Just when I thought, "Oh, I totally know what's going on," another piece of the puzzle dropped and made me rethink my suppositions. The unique topic was banking, and it was an interesting look into the world of finance and how some of the decisions are made. And the racing! I love horse racing, and his books make me wish I was an English trainer, or jockey, or horse owner.

The bad: The ending was abrupt, and I felt like this book was begging for an epilogue. Minor nitpick, but still a bit disappointing. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable read for me, as always. show less

I think what fascinates me about Francis is his ability to consider all the aspects of horses and horse raising. Tim Ekaterin is an investment banker who, with somewhat half hearted support from his firm, invests in a race horse. And then he learns why people don't invest in race horses even as he gets involved in a mystery. Ekaterin also pines for his boss's wife. Francis creates carefully woven mysteries with wonderfully real and complex characters.