Showing results by narrator "Tony Britton" in All Categories

The house was stripped bare of all its treasures. Gone was the furniture, the family silver, the paintings and the antique china. And if that was a shock for Charles Todd, painter of horses, how much more harrowing was the trauma for his cousin Donald, whose house it was and whose young wife lay on the sitting room floor, bloody and dead... A coincidental meeting with a middle-aged widow sends Charles off to Australia, on the trail of a gang with a fruitful business in forging works of art.

Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator who appears in Odds Against and Whip Hand, is back and facing new dilemmas and dangers. The opening finds him having uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend whom he, and everyone else, has held in affection bordering on love.

Violence suddenly takes the lead in the life of Neil Griffon. Following a grisly accident that lands his father in the hospital, Griffon finds himself in charge of his father's stables. Before he has a chance to get his bearings, he is brutally assaulted and abducted. The price for his freedom will mean the betrayal and deception of those who trust Griffon most.

On the first day of Royal Ascot, the crowd rejoices in a string of winning favorites. Ned Talbot has worked all his life as a bookmaker – taking over the family business from his grandfather – so he knows not to expect any sympathy from the punters as they count their winnings, and him his losses. He’s seen the ups and downs before – but, as the big gambling conglomerates muscle in on small concerns like his, Ned wonders if it’s worth it any more.

A British jockey, riding in Norway, has disappeared, and with him has gone a day's takings from the turnstiles of Oslo racecourse. The Norwegian police have found no trace of him, nor have the British, and the case is being filed as just one more unsolved theft. David Cleveland, investigator for the Jockey Club, is a last resort. He goes without much expectation, and finds himself in waters as dark and deep as the fjords.

On the death of his son, Sir Harry Hotspur had determined to give his property to his daughter Emily. She is beautiful and as strong-willed and high-principled as her father. Then she falls in love with the black-sheep of the family.

A beautiful Italian girl driving home in an open top sports car, a little boy playing on a South Coast beach and the senior steward of the Jockey Club on his way to a press reception in Baltimore. One after the other they suffer the same nightmare ordeal - kidnapping. But there is one thing connecting these particular cases. For the Italian girl is a jockey, and the little boy an only son of a racehorse owner.

Sid Halley had one good hand and another made of metal. Five hundred pounds of horse had landed on him, directly ending his career as a brilliant jockey - and indirectly ending his marriage to the woman he loved. He had become a private investigator, quite a good one, though his new life could never erase the haunting memories of his past glories.

Free choice? There's no such thing, according to Lee Morris. Choice is pre-ordained by your personality. Stratton Park racecourse faces ruin in the hands of a squabbling family. Lee is slowly sucked into the turmoil, unwillingly on the surface but half-understanding the deep compulsions that influence his decisions. One road leads to safety, another to death. How do you know which is which?

When the horse that wins a race gallops in with frothing mouth and popping eyes, what is more natural than to suspect that someone¿s slipped a booster into his oats? With eleven steeplechasers hurtling over the finish line in this pepped up states and all the dope tests conclusively negative, the Earl of October had something of a problem if he wanted to preserve the health of his favorite sport.

Once a blacksmith, now famous and respected as a newspaperman, Valentine Clark knows everyone who is anyone in the racing world. Aged, confused, blind and dying, he harbours a daunting secret that he is desperate to be rid of. He makes last confession to his visiting film-director friend, Thomas Lyon, whom in his delirium he mistakes for a priest.

Despair, suicide, and obsessive hatred, mixed well with humor, love, and horses, brew up into the story of a battle between one man's nerve and another man's cunning. Robert Finn, steeplechase jockey, finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign which is also afflicting his friends. He sets out to discover its source, and remove it.

Tim Ekaterin's merchant bank, like all banks, only invests in sure things. Now he's about to involve it in ₤5 million of prime horseflesh, a stallion called Sandcastle. Top breeders reckon it's the safest bet in racing. But racing doesn't just attract the money men of the city. It's riddled with all kinds of dubious dealmakers. People who don't think twice about breaking bones. People to whom no bet is safe until it's paid in blood, Ekaterin's blood.

At an annual party to celebrate the success of the racing season, everything seemed to be running well to form, including the need for more champagne. Then a runaway horsebox ploughed into the marquee. A witness to the terrible death and destruction, wine merchant Tony Beach knows it is just one of those tragic accidents. But when his expert advice is called into play over sub-standard alcohol in a local night club, connections start to click, and another person dies, horribly.

Derek Franklin is an injured jockey. The last fence at Cheltenham has left him on crutches. But his brother’s death means even bigger trouble. He inherits a jewellery business, a mistress – and some very shady business associates. Franklin likes to play things straight. But with £1.5 million in diamonds gone missing, he finds honesty can be a deadly virtue.

Dick Francis has written 36 best selling novels, one autobiography, and one biography. With Field of 13, he turns his hand to the short story. The settings range from the national Hunt at Cheltenham, where a middle-aged owner falls in love with her jockey, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where demon drink and wilting willpower take their toll.

Gene Hawkins, investigator by trade, was expert at arranging events so that they appeared accidental to all involved. Therefore, when he himself witnessed an ‘accident’ his curiosity flared up bright, and he insisted on looking into what he regarded as a work of art. A quarter of a million pounds worth of Derby-winning stallion had vanished into the Blue Grass of Kentucky... and a young man and a girl spent a dangerous afternoon in a punt on the River Thames.

The night before the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket sees the great and the good of the horse-racing community gathered for a prestigious black-tie Gala dinner. It is a fitting testament to the glamour of the occasion that top chef Max Moreton is cooking the evening's meal. Founder of the racing town's favourite Michelin-starred restaurant, the Hay Net, Max is something of a celebrity in Newmarket circles.

Perry Stuart is a TV meteorologist who routinely works before the cameras. His life calm and ordered, his face familiar to every British household, Stuart's profound weather knowledge and accuracy have given him high status among forecasters, but no physical baptism by storm. Not, that is, until a fellow forecaster offers him a Caribbean hurricane-chasing ride in a small aeroplane.

Amazing what bodily injury could do for a man. A fall from a racehorse had left brilliant jockey Sid Halley dangerously depressed, with a wrecked hand and the need for a new career. And now a bullet wound was helping him find one. He'd been with a detective agency since his racing accident, but it wasn't until some two-bit hoodlum drilled a slug into his side that he was sent out on a case of his own. That was where he met Zanna Martin, a woman who just might make life worth living again.