A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers.
As an amateur jockey, Roland Britten was lucky, and as an accountant he was rigorous. He knew he was on the hate list of several fraudsters, but never thought pen-pushers got kidnapped. And not from a racecourse right after beating the odds to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Held prisoner, Britten has no idea who his kidnappers are nor why they have abducted him. Only when resourceful school headmistress Hilary Pinlock gives him the opportunity to escape is he able to seriously think about what has happened and turn his logical mind to track down his abductors.
But his kidnappers haven't finished with him yet - and they'll risk anything to get hold of him once again . . .
Praise for Dick Francis:
'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror
'Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph
'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman
'Francis writing at his best' Evening Standard
'A regular winner . . . as smooth, swift and lean as ever' Sunday Express
Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott.
During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000.
Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.
