Crossfire, by Dick Francis & Felix Francis, is published in hardback by Michael Joseph, priced £18.99.
The master of the equestrian thriller, Dick Francis, died earlier this year, so it is hard to know how much he contributed to this novel co-written with his son, Felix, but on first reading it’s not as taut or tight as other classic Francis thrillers.
In this one, our hero is a soldier, Capt Thomas Forsyth, who returns from Afghanistan after his foot is blown off and goes back to his childhood home in Lambourn to recuperate. There, he finds his cold-hearted, belligerent mother, a racehorse trainer, deliberately making her horses lose races because she is being blackmailed over tax evasion.
Crooked accountants, dodgy characters from the racing fraternity and several femmes fatales are thrown into the mix as our hero battles to find the culprit. Not classic Francis, but not bad.
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