Dick Francis’s Damage
By Felix FrancisPutnam, 2014The Button ManBy Mark PryorSeventh Street Books, Trade Paperback, 2014I have been an ardent fan of the late, great Dick Francis since his early days as a thriller writer. He was the author of more than 40 novels set in the world of thoroughbred racing—a world he knew intimately. After serving in the Royal Air Force during WWII, he pursued his racing dreams. As a steeplechase rider, he won his first competitive race in 1947. Named champion jockey of the 1953-54 racing season by the British National Hunt after winning more than 350 races, he was retained as jockey to the queen for four seasons and raced eight times in the Grand National Steeplechase. In 1956, the horse he was racing for the Queen Mother collapsed in a spectacular mishap just before he would have won. This setback, along with scores of accumulated injuries, forced him into early retirement at the age of 36.A chance encounter with a literary agent led to his writing The Sport of Queens, an autobiography that incorporated his final racing debacle. Published the year after he retired, it became a bestseller in Britain. Flushed by that success, he acted on a suggestion from his wife Mary that he write a thriller. It was prescient advice that launched a new career.His debut novel Dead Cert appeared in 1962 and was an immediate success. Drawing on his experiences as a jockey and his firsthand knowledge of the racetrack crowd—from aristocratic owners to Cockney stable boys—the novel contained all the elements that readers would come to relish in a Dick Francis thriller. There was the pounding excitement of a race, the aura of the gentry at play, the sweaty smells from the stables out back, an appreciation of the regal beauty and unique personality of a thoroughbred—and enough sadistic violence to man and beast to satisfy the bloodthirsty.By the time Nerve appeared in 1964, it was clear there was a stellar addition to the canon of world class thrillers. Each year until 2000, the year Mary, his wife of 53 years and close collaborator died, he wrote at least one novel a year. In 2006 he returned with Under Orders, which brought back Sid Halley, his champion jockey turned super sleuth due to a crippling injury. In 2007 he began collaborating with his son Felix, the other confidant in his life. When he died in 2010, they had produced four novels together: Dead Heat, Silks, Even Money and Crossfire.He was one of the most honored of genre authors. In 1990 he received the prestigious Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America three times and was made a Grand Master, MWA’s highest honor in 1996. In 2000, he was named to the Order of the British Empire.I devoured every one of the Dick Francis novels, whose self-contained sphere was, of course, a reflection of a broader universe in which the themes of winning and losing and courage and integrity have more sweeping meaning. His hero became mine, the vulnerable often stoical loner struggling to do the best he can against corruption but with few illusions about changing the world.What made Francis special to me and millions of others was the fact that you didn’t need to know anything about the equestrian milieu or even be fond of horses to get great pleasure from his superior yarns. As the critic John Leonard wrote, “Not to read Dick Francis because you don’t like horses is like not reading Dostoevsky because you don’t like God.”Which brings me to Dick Francis’s Damage, Felix Francis’s fourth solo outing (after 2013’s Dick Francis’s Refusal, resurrecting Sid Halley), which is right up there with the best of his late father’s thrillers. It begins with a murder at the Cheltenham race track on the first day of the annual Steeplechasing Festival that culminates in a race for the Gold Cup. Ex-trainer Matthew Unwin suddenly slashes a bookie’s throat..The murder is open-and-shut, though Unwin’s motive is unclear. One of the witnesses is Jeff Hinkley, an investigator for the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). He’s on the case but he soon has bigger things on his plate.Hinkley and Nigel Green, his colleague in the BHA Integrity Service are summoned to a very hush hush emergency Board meeting at the BHA offices. All seven of the nonexecutive directors are present, an indication that something massive is occurring. Hinkley knows them all by name and reputation but has met only two personally. When Chairman Roger Vincent introduces him there is an immediate hostile response from one member:
“He’s very young,” declared a man sitting at the far end of the table. It wasn’t said as a compliment.“He’s also very good,” said Neil Wallinger, the director responsible for integrity matters…. “Jeff Hinkley has a remarkable photographic memory and probably knows more about racing, and racing people, than anyone else alive.”“I’m not so sure.” The man at the far end spoke loudly and dismissively, drawing supportive signals from a few of his colleagues. “Are you sure he’s up to it? I’ve never even heard of him.”“Maybe not,” replied Neil Wallinger, “but I bet he’s heard of you.”
And indeed he has. The man is Ian Tulloch and Hinkley proceeds with an in-depth portrait, stopping short at telling them about Tulloch’s marital infidelity.
“Does he know as much about all of us?” asked Roger Vincent with a nervous laugh.
When it becomes clear that he probably does, the meeting gets to the point. Forty-six of the forty-nine horses that ran in the Gold Cup were doped. Vincent turns over a letter from an extortionist calling himself Leonardo who takes credit for the drugging. He demands five million pounds or he will continue to wreak havoc on future races in ways they can only imagine and so destroy the integrity of the sport. Hinkley goes undercover to conduct the investigation. A token payment by the BHA results in Leonardo proving that he is a formidable and dangerous adversary. Performance-enhancing drugs are just one of the diabolically clever tactics he uses to sabotage the British racing industry. With consummate skill, Francis ratchets up the tension to the very end. We are caught unawares by the heart-stopping climax.Felix, like his father, gives us a wealth of fascinating behind-the-racing-scene details. Example: we learn why chocolate is an illegal substance for about-to-race horses. His many character vignettes are a treat. Take his pompous brother-in-law a barrister known as QC,QC— a delicious explanation awaits you. Dick Francis’s Damage is seamlessly executed, with all of his father’s trademark details intact, albeit freshly minted. Longtime fans will be hard pressed to tell this gripping thriller from the senior Francis’s work.Changing gears completely, a very different England is the scene of Mark Pryor’s The Button Man. Former FBI profiler Hugo Marston has just become head of security at the US Embassy in London. One of his first assignments is “babysitting” Hollywood star Dayton Harper and his actress wife, Ginny Ferro. The situation is delicate because the couple killed a local farmer in a hit-and-run car accident while filming a movie in Hertfordshire. They go to separate jails, but only very briefly. It seems Dayton Harper was born Dayton Horowitz and his father, Jasper Horowitz, owns half of Texas, most of its oil and almost all of its water rights. As Marston’s boss Ambassador Cooper tells him: “Jasper Horowitz is also a huge supporter of my boss’s boss. Not that the Secretary of State or the Prez have put any pressure on me directly, of course.”The task turns from routine to calamitous almost immediately. Ferro’s body is discovered hanging from a tree in a London graveyard. Back in Marston’s flat, the news sends the actor into a complete meltdown. A doctor and some heavy-duty sedatives knock him out—but, alas, not for long. No rest for the weary and/or the wicked it seems. Shortly after Harper wakes up, Marston has a visitor. He’s one Lord Graham Stopford-Pendrith, the MP for the district where Ginny Ferro’s body was found. Seems he’s visiting at the Ambassador’s behest:
“He’s former M.I.5, quite a big shot in the House of Commons. He’s a lord with a plummy accent, British Army mustache, and tweeds but he prefers to operate as an elected official…he’s been pro-America for a long time and could be helpful. So be nice to him.”“Why exactly is he coming?”“Because he wants to be seen doing something, investigating the death of that poor farmer and, when the news gets out, Ginny Ferro’s death….I think his interest is genuine.”
Over glasses of single malt scotch, his lordship is a fount of grim news. The farmer was the only son of a rather important landowner. He’s not going quietly. Plus Scotland Yard has gotten into the act because they think Harper’s wife was murdered! All Harper wants to do now is go home.They inform him he’s not going anywhere for a while.With distraction uppermost in their minds, Pendrith and Marston take Harper for a drive around London. Hardly able to travel incognito with a famous movie star, they get surrounded by the paparazzi. During the ensuing mêlée, Harper flees.Soon the search for the missing actor is in full throttle. It begins at the boutique hotel where Harper was staying. There they pick up a few cues from an enigmatic young lady named Merlyn who insists on joining them. The unlikely trio winds up in the quaint English village of Weston in Hertfordshire. Well, maybe not so quaint. It’s home to a kinky nightclub frequented by the stars. Marston tries to infiltrate a BDSM (Bondage, Dominance, Submission and Masochism) leather party there with disastrous results.By the time Harper finally surfaces, the trail has turned up more bodies and uncovered an unusual conspiracy. It’s the key to the killer and his motive. The chase winds up back in London where Marston corners his quarry in a most unlikely place.Hugo Marston is charmer who is as much of a watcher as a player. He often holds back, gathers information and thinks carefully about which rabbit hole he is going to chase down.The Button Man is fun to read. Stylistically, it’s like a Graham Greene entertainment as orchestrated by Hitchcock.Please note that The Button Man is a prequel. It came across my desk first and led me back to the other three Hugo Marston novels. They are: The Bookseller, The Crypt Thief and The Blood Promise—all highly recommended.____Irma Heldman is a veteran publishing executive and book reviewer with a penchant for mysteries. One of her favorite gigs was her magazine column “On the Docket” under the pseudonym O. L. Bailey.
