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EVEN MONEY
by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
Putnam, August 2009
368 pages
$26.95
ISBN: 0399155910


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Ned Talbot is a bookie in England. He's working at the Royal Ascot races, and he's not happy about it. He's losing money, and he's all dressed up to do it, which he's not happy about. It's part of his heritage; his grandfather insisted and the traditions continue. His grandfather raised Ned, as both his parents died when he was quite small. So he is definitely taken aback when, at the end of the day, a man introduces himself to Ned as his father. It takes some convincing, but Ned finally believes the man. And then the man is stabbed to death in front of Ned, in what Ned assumes is a mugging.

The police don't treat Ned well after this incident; he's a bookie and there seems to be little goodwill for bookies. This observation from early in the book is stressed far more than it needs to be. Ned learns that his father was not an honest man, and that there are several people looking for his father or for something they believe that Ned has. Ned has his own problems to deal with, and still persists in trying to find out more about this man who has shown up, turned his son's life upside down, and then been killed.

As readers of Dick Francis know all too well, at some point in EVEN MONEY, Ned gets the crap beaten out of him. This does not deter him. There are, also no surprise, some problems in the romance area in Ned's life. Ned Talbot is the protagonist that readers have come to expect in a Dick Francis novel: uncompromising, ethical, something of an oddball, and definitely connected in some way to the racing world. The explanations of how book-making works are probably very good, if one understands statistics and is willing to look reasonably hard at the math. In the long run, understanding the finer points of book-making doesn't really matter all that much to the plot, which will please Francis readers. EVEN MONEY can certainly hold its own with the rest of the Francis oeuvre, which is comforting to know.

Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, September 2009

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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