Product Description

It is difficult to say which was the first step towards the distant cataclysm. Looking back, Tim Ekaterin sees it as the day his boss stepped into a fountain. From there he is drawn into events and meets people as yet unconnected, but which, when woven together by time and chance, lead to violent action and the threat of death. Set in the world of merchant banking and thoroughbred racing, Banker is a terrific story which grows from seemingly harmless seeds to a wholly horrific harvest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #489255 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-26
• Released on: 2001-04-30
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: Audio Cassette

About the Author
Dick Francis has written thirty-eight international bestsellers novels and is widely acclaimed as one of the world's finest thriller writers, having first been a champion National Hunt jockey. His awards include the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger for the best novel, and he has been given three Edgar Allen Poe awards for the best novel of the year. In 2000, he was awarded the CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Customer Reviews

Exciting and informative.
Is Dick Francis a masochist, or a man to be avoided? Never have I found an author so imaginative about beatings-up. No Francis hero ever gets theough a book without being bashed thoroughly and painfully, and Tim Ekaterin, the Banker of this book, is no exception, finding himself in the last pages squashed beneath a horse sent berserk by drugs administered by the villain.

Tim Ekaterin is the rising star of his family's merchant bank, who knows his way around the racing world thanks to his mother's passion for it, but has never felt particularly drawn to it. All this changes when the bank is asked to finance the purchase by a stud owner of a top racehorse, Sandcastle, for stud purposes. Things appear to run smoothly, but then a high proportion of the stallion's first crop of foals are born with a variety of defects. Ruin stares the stud owner in the face, and Tim is inexorably drawn into finding out just what is going on.

As usual with Francis, it's a case of a villain who started in a small way, and was then seduced by the combined appeal of money and vengeance, and in the final pages the hero finds himself at his mercy...

Exciting stuff, with meticulous attention to detail. If you ever want to know about merchant banking, or how to invest in a stallion, look no further.

Gripping narrative
This work brings the world of racing (always a feature of Dick Francis books) into the world of banking. The narrator is Tim Ekaterin of the Paul Ekaterin Merchant bank. The story begins quite mildly with small problems within the bank such as competitors taking over companies that Eketarin’s were setting up. There is little doubt that someone inside the bank is passing on confidential information. Over the next three years the issues increase until the final solution to the puzzle. As usual Francis gives a very easy to read thriller.