Dick Francis...

One of my Christmas presents was a set of three Dick Francis novels - Decider, Easy Money, and Blood Sport. For anyone who doesn't know who Dick Francis is, he was a champion steeplechase jockey in England who rode for the Queen Mother. After retiring, he became a journalist, then a bestselling writer of suspense novels, all of which had some connection with horse racing.

My first encounter with Dick Francis was via Readers Digest Condensed Books - I read In the Frame, and loved it. Not long after, a friend lent me a copy of Banker, and I was hooked. While each book includes horse racing in some way, each one also focused on some other area - In the Frame had a protagonist who was an artist, and Banker was set in a merchant bank and a thoroughbred breeding operation.

However, what made his books so wonderful wasn't the taut mysteries, or the detailed backgrounds, though those were terrific and exciting. What made a Dick Francis novel a must-read over and over was his understanding of human nature - his tolerance and compassion for humanity.

To give you some idea of what I love about his novels, and I've read every one of them, I'll describe each of the three I got for Christmas. Decider is pictured above, and is unusual in that the protagonist Lee Morris, an architect and builder, has six children and five of them are with him throughout the book. His awareness of their individual and collective needs, balanced against his personal needs and desires, is one of the through lines of the book. Francis shows us Lee's individual relationship with each of them, particularly Christopher, the eldest; Neil, the youngest (of those with him); and Toby, the troubled middle child. Their presence is woven into the plot, and provides a counterpoint to the dysfunctional family that owns and operates the racecourse with which Lee finds himself entangled. The boys are part of the climactic scene in the book, as both victims and heroes.

Even Money is one of the books Francis co-wrote with his son, Felix (who has continued the franchise since his father died in 2010). Ned Talbot is a bookmaker, and his wife suffers from bi-polar disorder and spends a great deal of her life in mental institutions trying to get her medications balanced. There is a tragic secret in Ned's past that reverberates in his present life after a father he thought had died 37 years before shows up at the track.

Dick Francis' wife Mary, who did the research for his novels until her death in 2000, suffered from ill health (she'd had polio when young), and he writes of Ned's wife Sophie with profound understanding of the strains chronic illness can place on a marriage and the healthy spouse's work.

Francis prefers his protagonists to solve their own problems, sometimes in less-than-traditional ways, and generally outside the purview of the law. Often the police are antagonists, as in Easy Money, though sometimes there is a grudging respect between the main character and the law.

I saved Blood Sport for last, because in some ways it is one of the most deeply satisfying novels on many levels. Gene Hawkins is in intelligence work; he clears people for government work - in other words, he looks for spies trying to get a toehold in high security areas. He agrees to investigate the disappearance of a racehorse in the US, though he is supposed to be on a vacation he doesn't want. He is also seriously depressed, to the extent that he longs for the release of suicide.

The mystery itself is one of the most fascinating from my point of view. That part of the story is a mix of ingenious investigation, an ability to make intentional actions look like accidents, and using people's behaviors to get them to do what is needed.

From first page to last, Gene wrestles with his inner demons. Although circumstances bring him close to death again and again, he can't allow himself to give in as long as people are relying on him. He has a code of honor and he follows it, at whatever cost to himself.

Adrian Houston/Idols, photographer

There is a wistful romance for Gene, which illustrates the author's tender respect for the women in his stories. Francis doesn't have protagonist's who assume women will fall all over them. Instead, his heroes are diffident. It may be that because his wife worked so closely with him that he was able to write women as whole human beings, worthy of the same compassion and understanding he gave to his male characters.

We are all moved by different writers, different characters, different worlds. I've often compared or paired Dick Francis with Maeve Binchy, the Irish writer of women's fiction, because they both offer a similar view of the world that doesn't judge the human heart harshly. There is a sense of justice and morality in both, which is tempered with the awareness that few of us are saints.

As a writer, I only hope I can do half as well!

Take care,

Doc