Book Review: Free Fall

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Free Fall     Amazon UK HC
John Francome
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Horses
Headline, $24.95 trade paperback, 314 pages

Like all jockeys, when he started out, Pat Vincent dreamed of winning Group 1 races, of riding winners at Epsom. But like a lot of jockeys, one day Pat woke up and realized he wasn’t going to be winning the Derby, wasn’t going to be splashed all over the front page of the Sporting News. And he certainly wasn’t going to become rich. But he’s devised a scheme to win races at just the right time... and he has a partner who’ll place the bets for him.

Pat’s girlfriend, apprentice jockey Zoe Morris, knows nothing about his plans. Nor does Zoe’s older sister Harriet, even though Harriet is unfaithfully married to Pat’s partner in crime, Andy Burns. Joe Parkin, travelling head lad at the Somerset stables where Andy works as head lad (second in command to the trainer), suspects something’s up, and when he loses his job Beach Head, he blames Andy. Then Andy ends up dead at the bottom of the cliffs where he always walks his dog. Pat thinks it’s suicide; the police think it’s a tragic accident. They’re both wrong.

Like Dick Francis, John Francome is a racing legend: seven times Champion Jockey in National Hunt racing and currently a race sportscaster for Channel 4 in the UK. He’s best known on this side of the Atlantic, though, for his racing-based mysteries. Free Fall is his seventeenth mystery, and it’s a real corker. I did figure out whodunit fairly early on (about halfway), but Francome’s pace and style just drags you along as a reader. It’s a bit like how I suspect riding a champion racehorse that knows its job might be: fast, furious, and dead on target.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM