Whip Hand

Description

The classic mystery tale from legendary crime writer Dick Francis, in a stunning new paperback package. Ex-jockey Sid Halley is asked to investigate possible doping of the horses of thoroughbred trainer George Casper - whose once-successful mounts have been failing spectacularly on the race track. At the same time he learns that a conman has left his ex-wife Jenny facing a jail sentence over a fake charity, while the Jockey Club want him to look into certain powerful syndicates who may be acting in a ruthless and illegal manner. Three dangerous cases, three ways to die - Sid is back on home turf . . .

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.

Unbeatable * 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 * Superb. Francis's best book. And that's high praise * Sunday Mirror *