glass maker involved in stolen cancer research

About Dick Francis you can either say "the books are all the same" or "you get exactly what you expect". There will be a fairly young main character that excel at his occupation. The occupation will always be different and never directly involved in horse racing, but some way still involved in the racing world. The main character will be single but meet a lovely girl somewhere along the trip. The main character will suffer bodily harm. The books are always told from a first person perspective. There will always be detailed technical explanations about the main characters occupation, showing that Dick Francis has done thorough research. It's probably possible to add more similarities with some effort.

So I know all this, and still I keep reading his books? Well, they are quite short, quite well written and in general enjoyable. Never a Nobel Prize winner, but he deserves his three stars for this book as well. ( )

Shattered is an imaginative but awkward tale published in 2000 by veteran writer Dick Francis at the age of 80. Horse-racing plays only a peripheral role; in fact the protagonist is a professional glass-blower named Gerard Logan. The plot centers around a mysterious videotape passed to Logan by his friend, a jockey (who meets his death in a racing accident in the first few pages of the book). The video is stolen from Gerard that very night and he, as well as a collection of vicious rogues, spend the book searching for it. The rogues are after the tape under the strange misconception that its contents are worth millions of dollars, and they are willing to torture and kill in order to get it. As it turns out, the tape contains scientific data that might lead to a cure for cancer, a strangely incongruous element that serves as a classic "MacGuffin" in the plot.

The reader learns much information about the procedures of glassblowing (which the author reveals, was gathered by his wife as a long-term collaborator on his novels) -- I found this information both interesting and unexpected. Glassblowing figures in the story's climax in two ways. The criminal thugs invade Gerard's shop, and their cruel and sadistic leader, Rose, tries to use the dangerous, molten glass to force Gerard to talk (ultimately she ends up killing a police detective) and wounding others. In addition, Gerard fashions a large glass horse (to be awarded as a major prize to the winner of the horse racing competition.) He purposely fails to anneal the piece in the furnace, and at a key moment (timed carefully by Gerard), it shatters (as the outside cools too fast to house the molten inside) -- sending dangerous shards of glass everywhere, sufficient to divert and immobilize the criminals. A less skilled writer might have had the shattering glass kill Rose and her band of thugs, but Francis doesn't opt for such an obvious climax. Further, as in many of his other novels, the torments that the protagonist undergoes are not compensated by a sufficiently cathartic retribution on the miscreants, making the ending more realistic and understated than in many popular works of crime fiction.

Reviewers of Shattered at Amazon and Goodreads mostly liked the story. However, some judge it as far from the quality of the author's best work. Below are links to two reviews that I found especially meritorious:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1QKB85TDYSDJE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_tt...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2439233307?book_show_action=false&from... ( )

The last of my unread Dick Francis mysteries. Three with Felix remaining to read.

I enjoyed Shattered, despite a couple of hunh moments when a plot device seemed too contrived. Otherwise very good, and classic Francis style. ( )

Far from my favourite Dick Francis, this one just didn't speak to me and I was pleased to be finished it. ( )