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Book Description THE RACE IS ON to prove a jockey's innocence-a Dick Francis classic! When a banned jockey starts asking questions, he may get barred from life.... Dick Francis is..."Rare and magical."-San Diego Union-Tribune "Head and shoulders above the rest."-Ottawa Citizen Dick Francis was named Grand Master at the 1996 Edgar Awards Reader Reviews 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: Francis at his best, August 29, 2002 Reviewer: chris black from Rayleigh, Essex United Kingdom "Yesterday I lost my licence." That's how the book begins ... and indeed Kelly Hughes, a leading jump jockey , has been indefinitely suspended from racing after being found guilty of deliberately losing a race. He knows that someone has rigged evidence against him, and rather than sit back and wait for the ban to be lifted , he sets out to find his secret enemy. Hughes isn't a detective, and just as he doesn't really know how to carry out an investigation, the reader can't guess at how the plot will develop. My favourite highlight is when Hughes is driving home after a dance. At first it seems to be just a 'filler' scene, but it turns into something more dramatic - and the writing here is particularly well-crafted. The two main characters are Hughes himself , a widower, and Roberta, the snooty daughter of his employer. Near the start of the book Roberta asks him: " "That picture .. that's your wife isn't it?" I nodded. "I remember her". She said. "She was always so sweet to me. She seemed to know what I was feeling. I was really awfully sorry when she was killed" I looked at her in surprise. The people Rosalind had been sweetest to had invariably been unhappy. She had had a knack of sensing it, and giving succour without being asked. " Unfortunately Roberta has been brought up by her father to regard jockeys as an inferior social class, and it takes a long time for the two of them to kindle any real friendship, let alone romance. Francis is particularly good in this book with the minor characters - such as the aristocratic Bobbie, who clearly is very fond of Roberta but can't help hinting that Hughes is a better match for her, or Derek the diffident mechanic who kept most of his brains in his fingertips. The plot doesn't flag, the tale builds to a satisfactory climax and I only wish Hughes had appeared in another of Francis' books. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
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