Dead Cert

Description

The classic mystery tale from legendary crime writer Dick Francis, in a stunning new paperback package. 'Admiral met the fence perfectly. He rose to it as if flight were not only for birds. And he fell.' Alan York's friend, jockey Bill Davidson, was killed in Admiral's fall. After the race, York visits the fence and discovers a coil of wire lying beside the fence post and signs of where the wire had been attached. The fall was no accident - but murder. Unable to convince the police of this, York is forced to turn amateur sleuth and is soon on the trail of a ruthless gang of race-fixers.

Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott. During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.

As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing * Daily Mirror * Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end * Sunday Telegraph *