The History of Mystery

#8: For Kicks - Dick Francis.  For a while, I had read every mystery novel Dick Francis wrote, though I did not keep up with the collaborations with his son, Felix.  I am aware that Mary Francis also had a hand in the novels and may have had more of a hand than admitted.  Whoever Dick Francis was, they wrote great mysteries, and a lot of them.  Three good things and one bad thing were signature features.  First, the fascinating world of English steeplechase racing, and the pattern that each novel featured a different protagonist (occasionally a particularly memorable one was repeated, like Sid Halley) who usually belongs to a diferent profession related to horseracing.  There were jockeys, of course, but also a trainer, a transport specialist, a veterinarian, a glass blower who specialized in horse images, a long-haired painter, a toymaker, and so on.  Second, Dick Francis was a master of action.  Conditioned as I was to Agatha Christie mysteries which often spent ten chapters or so establishing the characters and anticipating the central crime, most Dick Francis novels started with an immediate crisis, in the very first pages, which may or may not have to do with the central mystery but was sure to put the protagonist in peril.  The bad recurring feature is, it must be said, there was an element of masochism in most of the books.  The heroes persisted because of their tolerance of pain, but a large number of the villains seemed to like to inflict pain for its own sake.  I recently re-read Forfeit because it won the Edgar and I am reading the Edgar-winning novels in order.  Forfeit is a great book and a worthy winner, but I had trouble reading it a second time, knowing what pain was in store for the hero and his long-suffering wife.

The other positive element is that the plotting, especially in the earlier novels, is fiendish.  The murders and vicious beatings are usually in the service of some commercial crime related to steeplechase racing, and the dodges devised by the Francis' villains are often elaborate and brilliant.  As with John D MacDonald, Francis mixes it up, and sometimes the villain is obvious from the starting gate (excuse the expression) but sometimes it is a whodunit.  When it is a whodunit, Francis is right up there with Christie and Martin Cruz Smith in throwing the reader on the wrong scent.  And again, especially in the early novels, there is frequently a serious, weighty moral question at work that repays the reader's attention. 

Nerve, Dead Cert, Forfeit, Wild Horses, Comeback; all are among the most fiendish.  But the most fiendish of all is For Kicks.  A horse seems to go bonkers, endangering dozens of spectators and leading to the horse being put down.  Has it been drugged?  No one can seem to figure out how.  The hero goes undercover as a stable boy and endures a variety of dangers to his life, his case, and his liberty to solve the case.  To give an idea of how fiendish is the plot of For Kicks, I have to give a mld spolier, so go out and read it right now and then come back.  Good, you're back.  The cruicial plot element of For Kicks involves a psychological principle.  When I read For Kicks, it just happened that I was teaching Introductoiry Psychology.  In fact, it just so happened that I was teaching the specific principle of psychology that was the center of the plot, the very same week I read the novel.  So no one who has ever read For Kicks had more of an unfair advantage to be able to guess the ending.  So did I guess the ending?  Of course not!  Does that prove that Dick Francis is brilliant or that Vladimir is dumb?  You decide....