One of my favorite writers is the British thriller writer Dick Francis; this has been

the case for a long time. Some of my friends discovered him very early on – his first novel was published in 1962, and I imagine I was hearing encouraging words by the early 1970s. But they’re about horse racing, I would protest, I don’t care about horse racing. It doesn’t matter, just read them, I would be told. I bought an omnibus of three of his early novels from the Mystery Guild, but still ignored its presence on my shelves. One day, laid up with a cold or flu, I dragged it into bed with me and read it. Then I bought all the rest of them.

These are all first-person novels, with a different protagonist each time (almost each time, anyway). At first they were all jockeys or other race-course professionals, but as time went on some racing connections got pretty tenuous.

Dick Francis was a champion steeplechase jockey from Wales. Steeplechase jockeys get injured a lot, falling off horses and sometimes ending up trampled as a result. Eventually Francis suffered enough injuries that he had to retire. He wrote his autobiography, which was successful enough that he was encouraged to write more. He started with a newspaper column about racing, and then came the novels.

“Dick Francis” the writer was a family business, the books being written by Dick and his wife Mary. He wanted her name on them, too, but it was thought that would dilute the power of his name alone. There has never been a full accounting of who did what on the books. Mary had always been credited

with doing the research on the jobs the various protagonists have, and actually learning how to do the jobs, from photography to flying. My tea-leaf reading has me guessing that Dick wrote the first draft, and Mary took it from there. That could be completely wrong, however.

After Mary died in 2000, their son Felix stepped into her role. And since Dick died in 2010, Felix has been writing the novels solo.

I read all the novels faithfully as they came out, but fell out of the habit with the Felix books. Not because of any dissatisfaction with them, because I was still enjoying them. But the increasing disorganization of my library meant that if I didn’t read a book immediately upon its arrival, it was likely to get buried pretty quickly. I recently excavated the area I expected them to be in, and indeed found all of them. I tried to sort them into ones I had read and ones I hadn’t, but soon had three piles: Read, Haven’t Read, Don’t Know. I decided I’d just read them all, since I don’t care if a book is a new-to-me-read or a reread. Then I decided if I was going to be rereading Felix, I might as well reread Dick. So, 54 books so far. I figure one a month, mixed in with my other reading. Or, more precisely, three every three months, because as soon as I finish one I want to read another. Here are the first three, from March. I’ll be starting the June ones soon.

BANKER (1982)

An interesting book to start this reading program with, because it is a quiet story through its first two-thirds. Our protagonist is Tim Ekaterin, a merchant banker. The story follows Tim as he has to temporarily take over his ill boss’s job, which is to decide whether or not to lend enormous sums of money for various projects. One day his recovering boss invites him to the races, where he meets Calder Jackson, a man with an impressive record of healing sick horses. At the end of the day, Tim stops a teenage boy with a knife from assaulting Jackson. The boy runs away; no one knows who he is or why he tried his attack.

The story continues without further criminal acts, following the various people who were at the races that day, especially Tim’s relationship with three female characters. He’s totally in love with his boss’s wife, Judith, but because his boss is also his friend, tries not to act on his feelings. Judith introduces him to her friend, Pen, who Tim also comes to like. And he becomes fond of a client’s fifteen-year-old daughter. Tim’s firm is asked to finance the purchase of a racehorse, leading Tim (and us) to learn all about the stud value of horses. He also visits Jackson’s yard, learning more about his mysterious healing abilities.

Then, two-thirds of the way in, things take a turn. Mares start giving birth to deformed foals. Is it environmental? Genetic? Livelihoods are at risk, as are investments by the bank. Tim leads a task force of his friends in investigating the problem, which ends up putting them in danger. I enjoyed both the thriller and non-thriller parts of this.

BLOOD SPORT (1967)

This is Francis’s sixth novel, and his first with a protagonist not part of the racing industry. Gene Hawkins is a British spy, more out of Le Carre than Fleming. He’s a civil servant, not an adventure hero, but his competence in most things means he’s pretty good at taking care of himself, and others. He’s also severely depressed, to the point of potential suicide. His boss mandates a three-week vacation, but then, worried that with nothing to do he might end things, finds him something to do during the three weeks: Go to America and search for a missing thoroughbred. Gene resists until someone tries to kill one of the horse’s owners in his presence, and then feels obligated to see things through. He works with an American whose company insured Chrysalis, and also keeps an eye on his boss’s teenage daughter, who is staying with the owner’s wife. (Having the protagonist meet a teenage girl he becomes close to is not a standard feature of these books; it’s funny that it happens in these two that I read back-to-back.) These 1960s novels are all exceptional.

BLOODLINE (2012, by Felix Francis)

Mark and Clare Shillingford are twins who both, growing up, want to become jockeys. Clare does, but Mark grows too tall, and he ends up as a racecourse announcer. As the novel opens, he’s calling a race his sister is riding in, and she comes in second. He thinks she should have won, and deliberately lost. He calls her on it, and she essentially says, yeah, so what? Later that night, she falls from a hotel window. While Mark and their family deal with Clare’s death, life around them gets more chaotic – with blackmail and attempted murder. Even without Dick Francis’s input, this is still an entertaining thriller. (And there is a teenage girl, but she’s Mark’s niece, and she just has a cameo appearance.)

53 novels, a book of short stories, and counting. This should be good.