Smokescreen

Description

The classic mystery tale from legendary crime writer Dick Francis, in a stunning new paperback package. Edward Lincoln has scaled the Himalayas, survived car chases and defeated scores of assassins. As a movie action man he's even suffered stoically at the hands of sadistic directors. After finishing his latest film, he visits South Africa to discover why a dying friend's horses are suddenly failing on the race track. Lincoln's attempt to help a friend soon puts him in harm's way. From a nearly fatal interview to a dangerous accident in a gold mine, it seems only luck is keeping him alive. And in life, unlike the big-screen, there's no coming back from dead . . .

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.

The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish * Scotsman * 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 * Francis writing at his best * Evening Standard *