Paperback: 304 pages
Bnd$2.50
Review
Middling, readable Francis thrills - with a serviceable murder-mystery, some harrowing violence, horses in the background (if not central to the plot), and lots of filler about wilderness-survival literature. The young, plucky, good-hearted hero this time is narrator John Kendall, a travel/survival-writer and would-be novelist who's short of cash - and therefore agrees to write the authorized biography (a likely vanity-press item) of celebrated racehorse trainer Tremayne Vickers. (The job includes room-and-board at the Vickers manse.) Unenthusiastic at first, Kendall warms up soon after taking up residence with the Vickers family. He grows fond of the brusque yet thoughtful trainer; of Vickers' motherless teen-age son; of pretty assistant-trainer Mackie, who's married to Vickers' older son (a furniture-maker). Also, Kendall finds that he enjoys riding - and is good at it. Then, however, local police fund the remains of Angela Brickell, a nymphomaniacal teenager who disappeared several months back after working as one of the "lads" at the Vickers stables. So tensions mount as everyone wonders whodunit. Was it genial upper-crust horse-owner Harry Goodhaven? Or randy jockey Sam Yaeger? Or amateur rider Nolan Everard, already found guilty in the manslaughter strangulation of a young woman? Or. . .? Things get slightly more complicated when someone tries to kill dear Harry - who's saved from a horrid drowning by John. And eventually, because John is proving a clever sleuth, the killer stalks him - in a grisly finale that has John, pierced through with an arrow, enduring a formidable survival-ordeal. Rather slow-moving (about 100 pp. too long) and predictable - but okay entertainment in the later, lesser Francis manner, without the foolish tedium of Hot Money or The Edge. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
To John Kendall it seemed a good idea to throw in his job in order to write a novel. Ten months later it seems an equally good idea to write the biography of Tremayne Vickers, a National Hunt racehorse trainer. By the end of the commission he will need to summon up all his survival skills.
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