Product Description

When defence barrister Geoffrey Mason hears the judge’s guilty verdict, he quietly hopes that a long and arduous custodial sentence will be handed down to his arrogant young client. That Julian Trent only receives eight years seems all too lenient. Little does Mason expect that he’ll be seeing Trent again much sooner than he’d ever imagined.

Setting aside his barrister’s wig, Mason heads to Sandown to don his racing silks. An amateur jockey, his true passion is to be found in the saddle, on a thoroughbred, pounding the turf. But when a fellow rider is brutally murdered – a pitchfork driven through his chest – the prime suspect is champion jockey Steve Mitchell and the evidence is overwhelming. Mason, reluctant to heed Mitchell’s pleas for legal advice, soon finds himself at the centre of a sinister web of threat and intimidation and is left fighting a battle of right and wrong, and more immediately, a battle of life and death… his own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1991 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-05
• Released on: 2009-06-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There are few thriller writers who have had such long and distinguished careers as Dick Francis, and his lengthy series of books (with their zesty recreations of the racing world) are among many readers' favourite novels in the genre. Recently, ill-health seemed to threaten the author's reliable productivity, and the death of his wife (who had long been a behind-the-scenes collaborator on his books) made it appear that the golden days of the Dick Francis racing thriller were firmly in the past. However, here is Silks, the result of a collaboration between Dick Francis and his son Felix -- and it will be a welcome arrival for the legions of Francis admirers.

Julian Trent is found guilty of a violent unprovoked attack on an innocent family and a charge of attempted murder. He is accused by the judge of showing no remorse for his actions, but receives a remarkably light sentence. Surprisingly, this news is not welcome to his defence barrister, Geoffrey Mason, who was secretly hoping for a more severe judgement against his client, whom he does not like. Mason is a part-time jockey (this is a novel with Dick Francis's name on the jacket, after all), and when Mason dons his racing silks and travels to Sandown to follow his real passion -- riding a thoroughbred in a heated steeplechase -- he finds that he cannot leave the violence that is often the bread and butter of his profession behind him A fellow rider is savagely killed by a pitchfork driven through the chest, and there is a persuasive amount of evidence against champion jockey Steve Mitchell as the killer, but Mason becomes involved -- and finds all the various aspects of his life coalescing in a lethal fashion.

Dick Francis has 41 novels under his belt, and remains the consummate thriller practitioner. Felix, his son, had helped with the research on his father's novels over the last 40 years (notably Twice Shy, Shattered and Under Orders). Silks is their second full collaboration after Dead Heat, and should provides Francis aficionados with all the elements they've grown accustomed to. --Barry Forshaw

Review
'A gripping murder mystery set against the glamorous world of horse racing, with a bit of violence and romance.'
--Dorset Echo

`Full of rapid twists and turns, unexpected revelations, surprises and romantic episodes, I'm sure this fast-moving story will also be a winner.'
--Hull Daily Mail

The Daily Mail
A triumphant return to Francis family form

Customer Reviews

Lacking and lacklustre
I've been a Dick Francis fan for 25 years and have read and re-read everything he's written with glee and delight: even when the basic plots and what happened to the hero seem formulaic, the background research and the sparkling dialogue, and the quick way in which the author taught you about the new area of knowledge the book was dealing with always shone out against much less accomplished writers.

Sadly, the recent efforts lack that polish and clarity and Silks is even more longwinded than Dead Heat was. Perhaps some of the fault lies in the main character, a rather staid and straight-laced barrister who takes most of the book to be jolted out of his rather complacent life, but the dialogue seemed stilted, whole pages were devoted to complex backstory that previous books would have dashed off in a few succinct paragraphs, and overall I felt what was needed most was a good editor.

Once the story got going I did enjoy it, but getting to that point was a chore, no devouring page after page with gusto as in previous works.

Its great that Dick Francis is still writing, and I'm glad his son Felix is able to work with him but I suspect what we're really lacking here is the fine and sure touch of his wife Mary; it must be hard to change a writing team that had honed its skills to perfection. This is readable, and somewhat fun, but I hope the next book sees Dick and Felix getting into their stride.

Not one I'll be re-reading, sad to say and three stars mainly because even a poor Dick Francis is still a Dick Francis

RACE PAST THE FINISH LINE WITH THIS FATHER&SON TEAM
Fear and gross inhumanity gain the edge in this new story by father & son writers Dick and Felix Francis. Previously they wrote "Dead Heat" together; Felix has also sleuthed much background material over the years. In "SILKS" they build on a successful pattern that had been enhanced by the sensitive touch of Dick Francis' late wife Mary.

The familiar locales, racetracks, pubs, roundabouts, flowered countryside form a background for an informative under-story woven throughout this narrative: a history of the English system of courts & law. It is a satisfyingly palatable way to understand some of the differences between 'their ways' and ours in the USA. And how about staying the night in that fascinating Oxford hotel transformed from local prison? Reading contemporary mysteries, the reader is sometimes exposed to a sort of Wikipedia or 101 level course about industries, burial customs, you name it.

Should we care that racing is at a minimum in this second team effort? I prefer more racing thrills to getting pasted with the decidedly un-silky overdose of man's inhumanity. Geoffrey Mason is a barrister with dreams of rising to "Q.C." (or "silks"). He fulfills his boyhood dream of riding steeplechase, has amateur status and his own beautiful mount "Sandeman." It wasn't Mason's choice to be gathering evidence to prove the innocence of a fellow jockey accused of murder. But the barrister becomes the victim of frightful intimidation that follows him, and others, through the entire story. The book flap states that Mason "is left fighting a battle of right or wrong ... " Unfortunately "right" doesn't necessarily bring a satisfactory conclusion any more than war does. In this mystery some struggles perhaps reflect autobiographical events the two authors have experienced in the past few years. Even though living in the Caribbean, Dick Francis may not yet have felt the ocean's healing power.

There are characters and a pace in the Francis novels that have staying power even when violence 'sticks in the craw' ... This reader is left with a most unpleasant taste as my hopes of declaring a second to my 1989 favorite (("STRAIGHT" ~~ isbn # 0399134700)) were smashed in the final pages, I was dismayed to have raced to an ending of such ugly brutality.

(commentary-with-a-small-"c" by mcHaiku from INDIANA/USA)

His worst book
I'd had this book for a week before I had time to read it and was looking forward to it very much. I have all of his other books and have read them several times. It took a very long time for me to get into the book, Far to much legal waffle for me. The thing that upset me most was half way through a photo was found to be missing showing a dead girl with a foal. I recently read John Francome's Cover Up and I read on with dread that this book was going to follow the same story line, and it did. Surely someone involved with the production ot this book should have noticed the similarity, Cover Up was only published in 2005. I do hope He does better next time.