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No one has quite managed to fill the stirrups left empty by Dick Francis's retirement from the racing mystery field, but writers like John Francome and Richard Pitman in the UK and Kit Ehrman on the other side of the pond are doing the best to catch up on the rails. Francome's a former top jump jockey, now a TV commentator renowned for his broad West Country tones. He has brought his expertise to bear on the mystery track and in this and previous outings shows himself to be a more than competent writer with an eye for a good adventure. Former champion jockey Jamie Hutchison is released from prison after serving 18 months of a three-year jail sentence for a crime he can't remember committing. The car he was driving went out of control and killed a 15-year-old boy. He returns to the racing world -- the only one he knows -- where his sister Pippa is a trainer, his brother-in-law Malcolm runs a bloodstock agency, and Malcolm's father 'the Colonel' is a high-flying trainer. During his time inside Jamie's grown too big to be a flat jockey, so he takes up National Hunt racing over the jumps for the first time. There are some gripping (literally) scenes as he works with the formidable Ros Bradey to make a success of his career change. But as this progresses, his memory starts to return -- and naturally he's then in danger from more than flying hooves and crashing falls. The characterisation's a bit on the thin side generally, but Jamie starts to grow as the book progresses. Some of the other characters could do with this fleshing out -- Marie, sister of the dead teenager, and the Colonel are verging on stereotyped plot devices. But one or two stick in the mind, such as Ros and Dave, the unlikely old lag-turned-trainer. I was a bit disorientated at the start by not knowing who to root for -- it took a while for me to care much about Jamie. And we discover in the first few pages who one of the baddies is -- Jamie's brother-in-law Malcolm. But we don't know why he dunit! You may think Francome shows his cards too early, and that you know what will happen. You may be right on both counts, but it didn't matter to this reader -- INSIDE TRACK is a good, serviceable racing thriller that kept me turning the pages and had some high-adrenalin racing scenes worthy of the master himself!
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, October 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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