Pun Salad

I confess to a certain (literal) morbid curiosity of what will happen to the "Dick Francis" brand, now that he's recently passed away. This book (like a few previous) are billed as co-written with his son, Felix. Are they going to keep that up? If so, for how long? How many books would Felix sell on his own? As I type, Crossfire has just debuted at position #11 on the NYT bestselling hardcover fiction list; it's hard to see a publisher just giving up a moneymaker like that, even with the inconvenience of the author being dead.

Anyway, this one is pretty good.

The hero is Tom Forsyth. As the book opens, he's just had one of his legs involuntarily shortened by an Afghan IED. So it's back to England for him, and probably the end of his Army career. After a stint in rehab, he has nothing better to do than return home, although this reminds him of why he left home to join the Army: his mother is aloof, he and his stepfather don't get along either. So he plans on his stay being temporary, but…

As you might expect, horses are involved. Tom's mother is a successful trainer, but her horses have been underperforming of late, losing races they were expected to win. Mom and Stepdad are acting secetive. What's going on?

As you also might expect, what's going on involves intrigue and danger. It turns out that England is almost as dangerous for Tom as Afghanistan was. Fortunately, Tom's as resourceful and brave as any Francis hero. (And while Tom is slightly bitter, he's bitter about losing his foot. He's unapologetic about his service to Queen and country. Gratifying.)