Customer Reviews

Dick Francis Double: "Reflex", "Comeback"

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In REFLEX the I of the story is a race-fixing jockey. In order to make things look real on a favorite, he falls. Another jockey falls in another race and is driven home by the narrator. In this way the tale begins.

Camera work is involved because the late father of the second jockey was a photographer and because our hero takes pictures too. Dick Francis, a former steeplechase rider, is concerned with injury. One of his characters wonders what causes people to persist in the sport in the face of injury and risk and disappointment.

The jockey, Philip Nore, decides he wants to stop throwing the races and he lets the trainer and the owner know this. He is in danger of being discharged. In a complicated series of steps in the plot Philip manages to remain employed.

Dick Francis is a smooth and accomplished writer. In REFLEX he interweaves the themes of integrity, family relationships, and visiual representation. The world portrayed, the British steeplechase circuit, is exotic enough to move most of us out of our everyday selves and to constitute desirable recreational reading. It is no wonder that some years ago Francis's publisher arranged to promote his work in the general literature category, thereby removing him from the genre ghetto.

In this story it seems the jockey club, basically a preserve of the nobility, has been invaded by a parvenu. In the other plot strands, integrity and visual representation, Philip starts to learn George Milace's, the deceased photographer's, secrets.

The disadvantage of Francis's work is the violence. Nevertheless, I think the violence is used here for some purpose. The plot of REFLEX is one of the best produced by Dick Francis.