Mr. E. WilliamsJohnson & Alcock Ltd.Bloomsbury House74-77 Great Russell StreetLondon, WC1B 3DA Dear Sir: As the literary agent for the estate of Dick Francis, you probably receive too many letters concerning his novels and I apologize for adding one more. However, this letter is not to ask for licensing, reprinting, film or merchandising rights; nor does it demand Felix Francis be locked away until he creates six new books. It is a request that some of Dick Francis’s thrillers be re-recorded and released as audiobooks in order to protect the stories as well as their prospective audience. I realize book recordings were probably something of a publication afterthought when these books were originally released, and the process involved little more than recorded speech. I know, I just spent an excruciating weekend listening to Odds Against being read like it was a shopping list. All of the tension, terror, irony and humanity was drained from the narrative and although each character had an individual accent, they all spoke at the same rate and pitch. As a suspense novel, this recording it could have been marketed as an effective sleep-aid medication. I’m female, American, and an amateur performer but I could have done a better job reading than that!…
February is a hard month to love. Say all you want about the plucky groundhog, and rhapsodize on the romance of Cupid; remember the Chinese New Year, American Presidents and throw in a good word for Leap Year but the truth doesn’t change: February in the Northern Hemisphere is a difficult month to love. The Holiday Season disappeared ages ago and the pastel head of Spring is nowhere near to being seen on the horizon. We may be looking at wind or rain next month but right now the weatherman’s two favorite words are “freezing” and “snow” and the outside world almost seems drained of color. In February, it’s hard to avoid getting depressed. To keep the wraiths of February Depression at bay, may I suggest picking up a few books? In their own ways, each of the following stories helps me through these days of relentless cold. I hope they can help you too. If the rest of the world had to describe Jamaica in three words or less, their list would be: Poverty, Music, and Hot. Politics, Drugs and Religion make the next list but they seem to have grown out of a civilization where life…
Not every novel is a classic. Visit any English class and you’ll hear that a lot of novels are pulp or, as Capote said, “That’s not writing; That’s typing.” I won’t argue that point (my mom didn’t raise anyone that foolish) but I think some “popular” novels get less respect than they deserve. These books, whose primary purpose is entertainment, often have insights into the human condition. To ignore the good in these stories is to turn a blind eye to real gold.Dick Francis’s 24th novel is called Proof but it could have used one of his later titles, Come to Grief. Here, Tony Beach is trying to live a reasonable life under the weight of a double burden. His wife passed away six months before and he’s still mourning her death. The second is the shadow of a family legacy: Tony’s father and grandfather were famous as brave men and riders but Tony fears the damage that comes from falling off a horse. So he sells wine and spirits for a living, watches other people ride horses and remains convinced he’s the family coward. It’s Tony’s connections to the horse world that have him catering drinks at a party where…
Most people think you can’t learn much from popular fiction. I disagree. For one thing, so many of the “classics” people revere were popular tales in their day and for stories to sell, they must have an emotional appeal. Either story is sensational, in the titillation sense, or it resounds with the reader. Since the thriller novels of Dick Francis weren’t exceptionally sexy or gory, there was something besides the entertainment of the stories that kept readers coming back. One of the continuing themes in his stories was coming to terms with loss and because he wrote about this well, readers kept returning. It was a subject Dick Francis could speak on with authority. Francis had success as a jockey, although he lost his fair share of races, including the failure of Devon Loch in the home stretch of the Grand National. To win so many races and ride for the royal family and then lose that race for those owners because your horse falls in the home stretch must be devastating. Not long afterwards, Francis retired from racing, still a young man but unable to pursue the career he loved because of one too many injuries. These experiences became…
I love the crime thrillers of the last century and one of my favorite authors in the genre was Dick Francis. The man lived an incredible life (RAF pilot, champion jockey, best-selling writer, just look at his Wikipedia bio!) and if his novels run to a formula, each mixed a new field of information into an abiding love for horses and a solid block of principles. I’ve read all of them at least once, I give most of them house room and I can’t pick a favorite. So, I’ll give the first shot to one of his later books, Decider In Decider, Lee Morris salvages ruins. In today’s vernacular, he’s a flipper, one of those guys who buys distressed or damaged buildings and turns it into a marketable property. Lee’s an architect and he specializes in reclaiming “listed buildings,” those structures the British government protects from bulldozing and developers because they have historic or architectural interest. Lee’s business is to turn these often dilapidated buildings into marketable residences without destroying the characteristics that make the structure “listed”. Lee’s learned how to work with a variety of people in order to do his job and right now he needs these…