David Cleveland is a Jockey Club investigator who is asked to help his friend in Norway find an English jockey who is suspected of stealing a days take from a Norwegian race track and then disappearing. David is nearly killed in the first 10 pages and it won't be the last time he is in danger. The plot is typical of the Dick Francis style and the book leans a little more towards action than some of his do. There isn't a lot of horse racing intrigue this time but there is again some sexual intrigue when the hero is attracted to a married woman and she reaches a climax while dancing with David. I didn't start reading Dick Francis novels until the 80's. Most of them had some romantic interests for the hero but sexual encouters were not described. But the last two I read were from 1968 and then this one from the early 70's and they both have sexual encounters and both of them have the hero having affairs. Pretty strong stuff for a Dick Francis novel. ( )

Another good one, but disappointing because there was no big reveal with the bad guy present at the end! I need closure! ( )

How peculiar. In the original paperback, the title is clearly "Slayride"--one word. But the recent reprints have all been "Slay Ride"--two words. Not a big deal, unless you're looking for it on Amazon.

British Jockey Club investigator David Cleveland travels to Norway investigating the disappearance of British jockey Robert Sherman. It's presumed that he'd stolen the day's take from the racecourse and vanished. However, neither he nor the money has turned up, and some of the evidence doesn't quite fit together.

Things get complicated fairly quickly, and instead of a straightforward case of theft, Cleveland finds himself with a murdered witness, and his own life in danger.

If you like horses and horse racing, you'll probably enjoy this (and all of Dick Francis's books, for that matter) more than I did. In Slayride, there's a lot of detail about the Norwegian racing world, and how it differs from, say, the British.

I enjoyed the logical unraveling of clues--my favorite type of mystery. At times, this made the book seem a bit plodding, as Cleveland followed false leads, but it also felt realistic.

Best, though, was the twists and turns. The reader gets to experience them along with Cleveland--that is, they're not telegraphed or obvious... at least not to me.

I tend to mildly enjoy Dick Francis's books, and Slayride was no exception. He does a good job of crafting a mystery, but I get bored with the horse stuff after a while. So he's an occasional read rather than an author I collect.
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Short fun thriller - typical Dick Francis, loosely based on the horse racing scene but only as a location.

David Cleveland is a young looking 33, and head of the UK Jockey Club's Investigation department, that covers everything from doping to fraud and the occasional more serious crime that may occur at race meetings. He is sent to Norway to aid a former student Arne Kristiansen investigate an English jockey who appears to have stolen a sum of money from one of their race meetings and then disappeared. Arne suffers from a mild persecution complex necessitating a journey out into one of the fjords. An accident occurs and David realises that a trivial incident has far deeper and more worrying possibilities, and some inexplicable events start to make sense.

Fast paced, fun, and facile enough to skip over any plot holes - police don't generally co-operate with civilians, Norwegians get badly stereotyped etc etc. As usual in a DF novel women get short shrift. There isn't any depth to the characters, but the plot doesn't require much. Fun all the same. ( )

Slay Ride by Dick Francis. Dick Francis writes msyteries the horse industry, generally racing in and around Great Britain. Slay Ride is built around issues of racecourse security and takes place mostly in Norway.