Typically enjoyable Francis fare ( )

Racing reporter James Tyrone discovers a cheating bookmaker who makes money through hyping horses and then preventing them from running. Ty takes extraordinary measures to protect the latest horse in the string and his wife, crippled from polio. Ty's relationship with his wife -- complicated by a guilt-ridden affair with the biracial Gail -- and the minute depiction of their domestic economy are truly touching. I always think of Francis as adding sex to his books much later, and reluctantly (I envision his publisher saying, "Dick, horses running around in circles is all very well, but can't you throw in a few naked girls?"), but here he tackles the subject with some frankness and without the embarrassment that seems to characterize later efforts. ( )

A Dick Francis mystery with sex in it. The times they were different in 1969 and Dick Francis has another of his typical hero's, again almost too good to be true, except that this time the hero is having an affair. Very liberated stuff indeed. The story is better than some, but in order for the hero to have an affair, Dick had to have the hero also take several beatings and then rise to the level of very heroic proportions in everyone's eyes. The hero ends the book with everyone in almost worshipful adoration of him but then does something that is definetly not typical for a Dick Francis book. Sex and a different type of ending. Dick got back to writing mysteries with less sex and his hero's went back to having more predicatable flaws, but in this one from 1969, Dick Francis looked at exploring the possiblities he had in writing his novels. ( )

James Tyrone, journalist, investigates horse racing crimes. An average Francis thriller, not great. ( )