Not Yet Put Out to Pasture

Today is Halloween, of course, but as Elizabeth Foxwell notes, it’s also the 86th birthday of former Queen’s jockey Richard Stanley Francis, better known as mystery novelist Dick Francis.

It wasn’t so long ago that I finished reading Under Orders, Francis’ 39th novel and the third (after Odds Against and Whip Hand) to feature private detective and ex-jockey Sid Halley. This is also the first novel Francis has produced since the death of his wife, Mary, in 2000--a passing that reignited rumors (made public in an unauthorized 1999 biography, Dick Francis: A Racing Life, by Graham Lord, that Mary had in fact written much if not all of her hubby’s award-winning novels). Hmm. I, for one, didn’t notice any deviation of style or slackening of pace in Under Orders, which finds the increasingly happy Halley trying to solve the murders of a Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning jockey as well as the victorious horse’s owner, at the same time as he probes the potential for abuse of Internet gambling technology. If his wife did, indeed, write his previous books, Francis obviously learned along the way how to do it himself, when that became necessary.

Besides Francis, Inspector Ghote creator H.R.F. Keating, celebrates his 80th birthday today, while Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman--novelist and independent Texas gubernatorial candidate--turns 62 years old. Congratulations to all three.