Hands Down

Product Information

Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy - and keep me in mind when the next one drops. This one gallops apace, the excellent Chico Barnes makes an appearance too and I simply raced through it and couldn’t put it down. My fave character Sid Halley makes a comeback, living a normal life now he's dragged back into the mysteries involved in horse racing.

Sid Halley, a private investigator, has a new left hand, having had a transplant since his last appearance in Refusal. Life should be looking good but things start to sour when his wife decides to go home to be with her mother when she finds out that her father is dying.Chico is a repeated deus ex machina as Sid gets into jams as his investigations get closer to finding all the baddies and the evidence necessary for right to carry the day. Heavy with a guilty heart, Sid starts to investigate and soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that cuts to the very heart of the integrity of British horse racing. Now he's back - decked out with a new but real hand courtesy of a donor that, with the help of anti-rejection drugs, is working better every day. Jockey-turned-private eye Sid Halley was last seen in Refusal after losing his left hand in a nasty fight with even nastier opponents; for his troubles, he ended up with a prosthetic hand and a wife who who insisted that he quit his detecting work.

This follows Jockey turned PI, Sid Halley who is pulled into danger when a friend asks for his help. Sid can't help himself- he's supposed to be out of the investigations game, his wife Marina has left him, taking their child with her, and he's alone with the dog when Gary asks for help. This was an engaging read, full of suspense, fast paced, gripping, looking at the underbelly of the racing world, but how are these masterminds controlling things without being caught? This book features Sid Halley, an ex jockey, who lost his hand by having it trampled on by another horse, when his own horse fell during a race. Felix Francis is showing himself a worthy successor to his father (though some say it was Mom Francis that really wrote for Dick) once again in this Sid Halley mystery that goes into the weeds on betting on and throwing steeplechase horseraces in England and Scotland.

The drips and drops of details, even entire plots, that had precipitated into my brain would have splished and splashed into even smaller drops to be carried along with the churning river of drips from the thrilling (or not) pages of the hundreds of whodunnits I have read, mixing up the characters, settings, and plots until I wouldn’t be able to distinguish one from the other, or sometimes even forgetting that I had ever read it! perfect for curling up on a chilly autumn evening and reading it will definitely keep you guessing and completely engrossed from start to finish. He managed to get one name but it was someone he hadn’t heard of, anyone who was involved was reluctant to talk through fear of what would happen. The first three were written by Dick Francis, but after a long life and very prolific writing career, he rode off into the sunset. However, the very next morning, Gary’s stable yard is torched, horses killed, and Gary has disappeared.

Sid Halley is asked by an former jockey/now trainer to help him stop a fraud perpetrated by jockeys' agents.Now there are jockey agents, charging not only the jockeys, but the trainers, using blackmail and intimidation to accomplish this. Released 8th Nov 2022 by Crooked Lane Books, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.