Hands Down
Price as reviewed:
£20.00 hardback
Hands Down
Author: Felix Francis
Published: 2022
Available as paperback, hardback, Audiobook or Kindle edition
View now at amazon.co.uk
About Hands Down by Felix Francis
This is Felix’s 16th “Dick Francis” novel. Together the Felix Francis and Dick Francis novels have sold over 80 million copies worldwide in 40 languages. Felix continues to honour his father’s thriller-writing legacy with his latest book, Hands Down, published by Simon & Schuster.
Sid Halley, a private investigator, has a new left hand, having had a transplant since his last appearance in Refusal. After receiving death threats, an ex-jockey trainer friend calls Sid to ask for his help, but Sid has his own problems to deal with, like recovering from surgery and saving his crumbling marriage.
When his friend’s stable yard is torched, horses killed and the friend is found dead, Sid can only blame himself for not helping sooner. The police think it’s suicide, but Sid is not convinced after his friend’s terrified phone calls. 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.
Can Sid figure out what happened to his friend, or will he be the next one that the killer targets?
Review of Hands Down
For lovers of Felix’s father Dick Francis, it might be with some trepidation that you spot the return of Dick’s much-loved character Sid Halley. Can Felix perpetuate the broken genius that is Sid? However, it’s great to have this ex-jockey private investigator back on the scene, and he has a new conundrum to cope with alongside his sleuthing, a hand replacement for the injury that caused the end of his brilliant racing career.
There is a certain familiarity to all works in the Dick Francis oeuvre. A main character who is generally a good egg with a few loveable flaws, some proper baddies to “sort out”, against the backdrop of the racing life we know and love.
I enjoyed the storyline – it had the usual twists, a poke at the establishment (always), and it is generally an explosive thriller within a familiar setting.
I find Felix’s writing to be darker than his father’s. Suicide, murder, burnt horses feature here, as well as a sideline of a marriage in peril. Rather than a pretty girlfriend who turns into the hero’s love of his life, here there’s a middle-aged high-flying career woman as the fading love interest.
Felix never tries to hark back to bygone days, which although rather charming would be totally out of place today. The simple plot and daring hero getting in and out of fixes remains the same for those who want the Francis legacy to run on forever.
However, Felix cannot make up for his lack of immersion in the weighing room, the sights, smells and sounds of the racetrack and early-morning stables. To his credit there is nothing that glitches, despite him never having been a rider, but for me that was Dick’s absolute USP and unless you’ve been part of the racing scene it’s impossible to replicate. For many readers this will pass by unnoticed, but that is the crunch for those coming at the book with a deep equestrian interest as most H&H readers will.
Verdict
Overall, it’s a decent holiday read, the pages fly by and it comes to the inevitable satisfying ending.
View now at amazon.co.uk
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