Proof

Wine merchant, Tony Beach, is delivering wine to a party of racing enthusiasts when a horse trailer breaks loose and kills several people in the party tent. The police question him about who he saw around the trailer and they are impressed with his ability to remember things. Eventually the police ask for his expert help in following up on complaints about false labeling on some of the Scotches and wines provided to local bars and restaurants. That then leads to him being asked to assist private detective Gerard McGregor in finding out who is responsible for a series of whiskey bottling trucks being hijacked.

I've never been much of a Dick Francis fan because I just don't have any interest in horses and that's normally what he writes show more about. I'm still nursing a grudge from a nasty horse I met about forty years ago. I do love wine and this book is filled with interesting tidbits about wine, as well as Scotch whiskey. I also loved the characters in this story. Tony Beach is a widower who is devastated by grief for his recently deceased wife. He's also the son of a military hero and knows he doesn't live up to the expectations his family had for him.

There were plenty of twists and turns and the ending was incredibly tense. It definitely wasn't predictable and even though the villain was already known to the reader, it was a very compelling novel. I really enjoyed this book, especially the character of Tony Beach and his slow realization of what sort of man he really is. I may have to reconsider Dick Francis books, even the ones that deal with horses. show less

Tony Beach is a 32-uear-old widower who is a wine merchant with an in with the horsey crowd because his father was a famous amateur jockey and his mother rides in the local hunt. Because of his connections, he's hired to supply the liquor for a party hosted by one of the local trainers. He sees a horrible accident when a loaded horse trailer rumbles down a hill and crashes into the outdoor tent where the party is being held. He and some of the other guests do their best to rescue many trapped in the collapsed tent. Even so, the guest of honor, a sheik, some of his entourage, one of the trainer's best customers Larry Trent, and a few other people die in the accident.

The trainer breaks a leg, and his secretary is also severely injured, show more but not before he has a conversation with Tony about some whiskey he had at the Trent's supper club. He is convinced that the whiskey wasn't what the bottle's label says it was. This conversation makes its way through the trainer's wife to Gerrard McGregor who helped Tony free people during the accident and who works for an investigative agency.

Gerrard recruits Tony to be his expert for his current case which concerns the theft of trucks filled with whiskey, Gerrard's company has been hired to find out how the thefts are happening because the company won't be able to stay in business if the thefts continue.

Meanwhile, the local police also need Tony's expertise because they have numerous complaints about alcohol being sold in local pubs that isn't what it is supposed to be. Trent's supper club is on the list and Tony quickly identifies that the whiskey and some of the wines are being misrepresented. While they are there, a man from the home office appears and seems surprised about the liquor. Shortly thereafter the wine manager at Trent's is found murdered by having his head wrapped in plaster of Paris.

As Tony and Gerrard investigate, they begin to find connections between the two investigations and the tension mounts as they get closer to a solution and also closer to a killer.

This is one of my favorite stories by Dick Francis. I really enjoy that the hero has self-doubts about his courage and fear that he won't be able to live up to the heroics of his father and grandfather. I also like that he isn't afraid to be grieving for the death of his young wife. I also like that he is happy in his career.

The narration was expertly done by Simon Prebble who managed a variety of accents to distinguish the various characters without making the accents incomprehensible to my American ears. He also did a great job conveying the various emotions of the characters and the rising tensions in the story. show less

If this book gave off any more Dad vibes it'd turn up at your house and mow the lawn you hadn't gotten round to mowing yourself. The entire story is based around a particular, slightly niche profession which has been carefully researched (reputedly by Francis' wife) so that the protagonist spends much of his time deeply immersed in the prosaic activities of his job in an oddly satisfying and slightly fascinating way. This leads to his being a witness to a dreadful accident, which leads to the discovery of wine and whiskey fraud, and for the honest-to-God-relatable reason that he's lonely after the death of his wife, he allows himself to become a consultant to both the police and a corporate security agency, coming at the problem from show more two different ends.
The writing, characterisation, social observation and plotting are definitely a cut above, but it is noticeable that when the story strays into a horse-racing meet, the prose briefly srouts wings and takes off for the stratosphere before being, ahem, reined in again, betraying, I suppose, his years writing about the sport for a newspaper.
Yeah, it's easy to see why this well-crafted piece of entertainment was one of a string of bestsellers, but I do wonder, given his stature, why the audiobook, which has a superb reader, has not been cleaned up in any way - it sounds as if it's been transferred between two tape recorders before being digitised. show less

This is a review of the audio edition with Nigel Havers playing the part of the protagonist, Tony Beach.

The adapters did a good job here. The book moves right along and the discussion of whiskey and wine manufacturing and distribution is quite interesting. The sound effects are well done; scenes at the racecourses have a very open-air kind of feeling, the bottling factory is nice and echoey, etc. The voice talents are good. The book is marred by Francis's usual trite moralizing; but when the protagonist turns a hose full of cheap wine on the villain the events have a surreal quality that is surprising and not so formulaic as some of Francis's other efforts.

Since I greatly enjoyed the BBC Radio dramatization of this novel (in abridged form), I sought out the original work. It was published in 1984, towards the middle of the author's long writing career.

Unlike many of Dick Francis' novels, horse racing plays a minor, peripheral role though it does set the stage for some of the action. In fact the story begins with a major catastrophe at an outdoor garden party: a large horse trailer parked on the hill suddenly careens into the crowd, killing and injuring several in the crowd. The episode is the classic red herring, since it was truly an accident, and its only bearing on the rest of the story is that a key figure (Larry Trent) was among the casualties . The protagonist of the story is Tony show more Beach, a mild- mannered wine merchant from a family of military and racing men. He had a troubled childhood, and as an adult, suffers from a lack of courage (which yields feelings of inferiority); what's more, his wife has died 6 months earlier, and he remains in mourning.

Tony is recruited by a private detective due to his expertise; someone has been stealing cheap whiskey and wine from trucks, and reselling each as expensive, premium brands. Beach knows the business, and has an educated palate, and agrees to help. Meanwhile, there's a mystery of a missing racehorse, a series of burglaries of bars and liquor stores (apparently to cover up the fake liquor scam). As Tony is drawn further into the investigation, he is nearly killed in an auto accident, and is on the scene after a bizarre murder (one that frankly is rather too dastardly for a work of this kind). In the final scene, Tony himself is nearly murdered, and he is forced to summon what courage he can muster to attack the main perpetrator.

As with others of Francis' work, the title has multiple meanings. Ostensibly it refers to alcohol. As Tony notes: “If you mix a liquid with gunpowder and ignite it, and it burns with a steady blue flame, that’s proof... proof that the liquid is at least fifty percent alcohol." However, proof also refers to identity of the perpetrator guilty of the crime, and the need for the protagonist to show "proof" of his courage and of his worth to his own heritage.

Fans of Dick Francis certainly shouldn't miss this worthy contribution; it also would be a good starting point for any reader who has yet to sample the author's popular fiction. show less

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.

My first read by Dick Francis, certainly not the last, Proof made me realise why he is held in such esteem by tonnes of readers world over. The beautifully fleshed out characters, the well crafted mystery, and the flowing narrative filled with interesting information about horse racing and wines and scotch held me captive from start to finish.
I hugely enjoyed this novel and plan to dig more into Francis's body of work.