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DAMAGE
by Felix Francis
Putnam, October 2014
400 pages
$26.95
ISBN: 0399168222


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I admit to being very leery of authors who choose to try to extend the work, or at least the work style, of another author who has had great success but has now died. I have shied away from sampling most of the offerings and when tempted into reading one, I have been mostly disappointed and felt justified in my attitude.

I appreciated and enjoyed Dick Francis' huge output pretty consistently and decided to avoid his son's efforts, assuming that all Felix Francis wanted was a leg up on establishing a lucrative career. Even so, I had doubts about my shunning him – largely because I was well aware that Felix had been co-author of several of Dick Francis's last novels.

And then I ran into the Shaaras, father and son, Jeff and Michael, historians par excellence. The work is seamless from one to the next, the son simply picking up the reins and continuing the scrupulous research and grand narrative style of his father.

So.

I was offered the chance to review Felix Francis's fourth solo novel in the Dick Francis tradition and I thought I should find out once and for all whether I had judged the son unfairly. I took the chance. I was wrong. Period. Felix Francis writes well and convincingly, offering me a strong extension of his father's sort of novels and I intend to keep on reading what he writes.

DAMAGE is a stand-alone mystery featuring Jeff Hinkley, an undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority. Much of what he does involves attending horseraces throughout the year watching for those few persons who have been banned from racing for cheating in a variety of ways. Their presence at a racetrack would be a further offense and punishable.

As the story opens, Hinkley is at the Cheltenham Steeplechasing Festival watching the crowds in general, of course, but tuned to spot a particular man who was banned for giving drugs to horses he was training. At the end of one race, Hinkley sees the man and follows him in order to discover who he's involved with now. But the man heads straight to the bookmakers' stalls and, walking right up to one bookmaker, pulls out a knife and cuts his throat. The man is captured almost immediately but what follows the murder is threatening and very confusing.

A reputable lab reports to the BHA that virtually every horse that won that day at Cheltenham was drugged. There is no question about the validity of the tests. Soon after a note is delivered to the BHA demanding millions to keep the note-writer from disrupting any more racing events.

Even though there are members of the BHA board who want to blame Hinkley for not preventing the murder of the bookmaker – the attack was very quick and totally unexpected and there were dozens of other witness who also did not prevent it – the majority agrees to place Hinkley deep undercover to determine how the Cheltenham horses were drugged and how to keep it from happening again.

In tip-top Francis style, the very bad guy is also very intelligent and inventive so stopping him is a nightmare but Hinkley is up for the challenge and never gives up.

Side stories involving the deadly illness of his older sister and the dissatisfaction he feels in his love relationship go a long way to fleshing out the protagonist and making him plausible.

I did feel that the ending was abrupt and that I never had much chance at pinpointing the identity of the villain but the story is well-crafted and never bogs down, just moves along quickly giving the reader an entertaining and clever ride.

§ Diana Borse is retired from teaching English at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and savoring the chance to read as much as she always wanted to.

Reviewed by Diana Borse, October 2014

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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