Crossfire Book

Captain Thomas Forsyth s tour of duty in Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he s badly wounded by a roadside bomb. His world is torn apart by the injury; the army is his life. Six months of leave to recuperate is a daunting prospect but not as bleak as the probability of never rejoining his regiment.

Tom returns to his childhood home in Lambourn, where his mother is a racehorse trainer and the First Lady of racing. Never having seen eye-to-eye with her, Tom doesn t expect a hero s welcome but even he s not prepared for the reception that awaits him.

When his mother s prize horse finishes a vastly disappointing last in a race he should have won, Tom discovers that the training business is on the edge, and facing a threat far more dangerous than a run of bad form. Tom finds himself on a very different, but just as deadly, battlefield, where again his military skills are tested. . . . Kill or be killed?

Publishers Weekly

In the enjoyable fourth and final collaboration between Francis (1920-2010) and son Felix (after Even Money), the army career of Capt. Thomas Forsyth abruptly ends when an IED in Afghanistan blows off one of his feet, leaving him with a prosthetic replacement (like another Francis lead, Sid Halley). Upon discharge from National Health Service care, Forsyth makes his way home to Lambourn, where he gets a less-than-warm welcome from his mother, Josephine Kauri, a horse trainer. After learning that her stable has had a series of mishaps, Forsyth discovers that Kauri has been sabotaging her own animals in response to a blackmailer's threats to reveal her tax evasion to the authorities. With nothing else to occupy him, he turns detective to identify the extortionist. Though the plot details won't linger as long as those in Dick Francis's best work, like Whip Hand, this is still a suspenseful read. Francis aficionados will hope that Felix chooses to carry on the family tradition on his own. (Aug.)