Knockdown Book

Dick Francis is "Old Reliable" for me: he always delivers the goods. I have never been bothered by the fact that his thrillers are all variations of one basic formula, because like a blue ribbon French chef he has refined his technique of combining the same ordinary "vegetables" and "meats" everybody is familiar with into a memorable haute cuisine experience. He is a natural born storyteller, and he makes this writing business seem effortless. An added bonus for me beside familiarity with plot and characters is the re-reading value of his books. After a couple of years, the stories mix together into an amorphous cloud, and I am able to revisit the same novel for the third and fourth time, and still enjoy it like the first time I discovered it.

In the particular case of Knockdown, the main character is, as usual, a professional jockey, forced to retreat from the racetrack by physical injury, re-qualified into a fringe profession where he proves himself an expert - a bloodstock agent, or horse trading intermediary. Again, as usual, he inadvertently steps on the toes of people trying to scam the system and is pushed into a life and death struggle with a mysterious evil eminence with a penchant for violence. On the road to the final confrontation, the hero picks up a love interest - one of the most successful romances I've read so far in Mr. Francis books.

So: vintage Francis, a must for the fans, and as good a point of entry for new readers as any other of his books.

edit : for spelling