Dick Francis, Second Wind
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Dick Francis has published 42 thrillers until his death, aged 89 in 2010. Over the years Francis made the action-suspense-detective story extremely popular and arguably forged the widest fan base of any writer before or since. A former jockey himself, horse racing always plays some part in his books. Although he had been been a novelist for over 30 years it had been suggested that his broader scope novels of the 1990s – exploring other interesting professions – were vintage Francis. This mystery has TV meteorologist Perry Stuart getting his weather balloon caught in a storm. Dick’s friend and colleague Simon Brett provided the appreciation.
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Dick Francis published his first mystery, Dead Cert, in 1962. Since then, he has published 42 thrillers until his death, aged 89 in 2010. During his career as a crime writer made the action-suspense-detective story extremely popular and arguably forged the widest fan base of any writer before or since. Each year the new Dick Francis was almost always a guaranteed bestseller.
A former jockey himself, horse racing always plays some part in his books. He achieved success early with several books that are still read today such as For Kicks (1965), Flying Finish (1966) and Forfeit (1968). In range and power as a suspense and mystery writer Francis was probably unequalled. Not only were they good puzzle books, but they had a emotional impact. His books had a strong following internationally, and especially so in the United States were he was a Grand Master. They were often centred on modest hero-figures such as the racing correspondent James Tyrone in Forfeit who looked after his invalid wife (as Frances once did himself). Although he had been been a novelist for over 30 years it had been suggested that his broader scope of his novels in the 1990s were vintage Francis – they focused more on artistic professions – rather than on skulduggery in and around the racing circuit. This particular one with TV meteorologist Perry Stuart, however, is not regarded as being in that category.
Plotline: Dick Francis takes us on his most electrifying, death-defying ride yet in Second Wind. The catastrophic power of a giant hurricane can raise coastal waves thirty feet high and blow through houses at devastating speeds. For TV meteorologist Perry Stuart, however, such predictions are generally hypothetical, as he chiefly predicts periods of English drizzle, with bursts of heavier rain and sunshine to follow. 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 airplane as a holiday diversion. But a frightening accident teaches Stuart more secrets than wind speeds . . . and back home in England he faces threats and danger as deadly as anything nature can evolve.
Second Wind is an unusual entry in the Francis canon. The reviews were mixed and perhaps less than the usual standard. This edition of 110 signed and numbered copies does however contain a bright and deserving appreciation by president of the Detection Club Simon Brett.
Anthology: Like a Charm (ed. by Karin Slaughter) – 15 signatures
Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe’s Trafalgar
Rating by Kirkus Reviews on June 27, 2012 :
Kirkus Reviews
Francis celebrates his 40th horses-plus suspenser by taking his hero on a vacation in the Caribbean — into the eye of a hurricane that will lead him to still deeper mysteries. Perry Stuart doesn’t just read the weather report for the BBC; he’s a meteorologist and Ph.D. physicist whose predictions are followed religiously by (of course) racehorse owners all over England. But Caspar Harvey is in no position to take advantage of Perry’s clear-and-fast forecast for an upcoming race date; his prize filly’s come down with a mysterious ailment. Nothing daunted despite his beloved grandmother’s heebie-jeebies, Perry takes off with his friend and colleague Kris Ironside, a daredevil amateur pilot, for Grand Cayman, where Harvey’s friend, American mushroom grower Robin Darcy, has bought an airplane Kris can borrow to satisfy a long-held dream: flying through Category-3 Hurricane Odin. Francis (Field of Thirteen, 1998, etc.) does a masterly job building portents of doom through the first third of this adventure, and no one but Perry will be surprised when the flight maroons him back on Trox Island, a tiny scrap of land he’d explored briefly with Kris on Robin’s behalf as the price of borrowing the aircraft. But with Perry’s rescue from the island, the mode of the story shifts abruptly from suspense to mystery, as threats to life and limb give way to a series of riddles. What errand did Robin want Kris to run on the island? What’s the meaning of the coded figures Perry found inside a locked safe during his stay? What claims does Robin’s Unified Trading Company (whose members seem to include virtually every member of the small cast) have on the island? Why is Perry, days after his rescue, now taking sick? And what does his illness have to do with the malady that sidelined that filly? Urgent questions, all of them, answered with of all Francis’s usual unobtrusive technical mastery — even if fans looking for the thrills he more often provides think the action here trails off long before the finish line.