Customer Reviews

Dick Francis Companion

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Almost fifty years ago, highly successful jockey Dick Francis left horse racing to write mystery novels that in many cases used his former occupation as a milieu. Over the next four plus decades, genre fans continually loved his works that have led to multiple awards including a life achievement and grandmaster status. When his companion, his beloved wife Mary died a few years ago, Mr. Francis finally slowed down his incredible high quality annual production of great who-done-its.

THE DICK FRANCIS COMPANION provides further recognition of one of mystery greats as well as giving readers a deep look at his works since the 1950s, his memorable characters, an exclusive and interesting interview with Mr. Francis, and of course links to horse racing. Though clearly for fans of the author, this biography with its emphasis on the novels and a recent anthology is a Triple Crown winner (so the finish line is stretched across the ocean as Mr. Francis raced in England) for those readers who know a sure bet.

Harriet Klausner

Very well organized guide to Dick Francis novels. It includes a 2002 interview with Dick Francis after his initial retirement in 2000 following his wife Mary's death. This companion guide is much better than one produced more recently by Stephen Sugden (called A Dick Francis Companion: Characters, Horses, Plots, Settings and Themes). While Mr. Sugden's guide may be relatively thorough it appears to insert too many personal opinions (for my taste at least) and at times provides too much detail to be used as a companion guide. Do yourself a favor and find a copy of this book written by Swanson & Dean and hope that it becomes available as an e-book.

good recap; but I did notice that spellings of names were not consistent with previous printed editions of the Dick Francis work....I do not know if the spelling transisitions happened in conversion from hard to paperback or just over confidence in author's ability to spell as Francis did.

As a long-time reader of Dick Francis books, I am very happy to have been able to get this book, one for myself and another for a friend who is also a Francis fan. The book arrived promptly and in great condition and is being enjoyed right along! Amazon is the way to shop!