Customer Reviews

Risk (Dick Francis Library)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dick Francis has a winning formula: he writes books about a young man of around 30, in a career most people might think is boring, but which turns out to be exciting. His hero is usually taken for granted and under-appreciated by his family, and under-employed, but in the course of the book proves he is far smarter, cleverer, and more observant than anyone supposed. Usually, there's a highly intelligent middle-aged career woman who recognizes his worth and helps him along. It's a formula, but the details that Francis provides makes it work every time.

In this case, our hero is an accountant, an auditor. Many people would start to snore at the thought that auditing could be an exciting job; as a former auditor myself, who has since traded it in for the relative calm of a desk job, I was pleased to see him show how varied and interesting the job can be. Auditors have to know a great deal about a variety of industries, do a lot of travelling, and have highly analytical minds used to investigating small details and discrepancies that most people would not notice. (There might be a bit of bias on my part, of course.) All this means that an auditor winds up making a good investigator of mysteries, as well.

Along with the details of Roland's regular job, and the details of horse-racing that are in every book, we also happen to find out a great deal about yacht-building. Such details are all through Francis's books; he seems to know about every possible job, and must collect details as much as most people collect lint. I always enjoy learning these details!

In this particular book, we have some ambiguous people who turn out not to be bad guys, the person captaining the yacht that Roland first is stored on when kidnapped. Then, the bad guy turns out to be a total surprise, someone we don't suspect at all till the end is revealed. Nonetheless, once the details are pointed out, one goes "Of course!"

Roland Britten, amateur jockey and professional accountant, wakes up groggily, finds himself bound and tied, aboard what he later finds out to be a ocean going racing yacht in the Med. His last memory was winning, agains the odds, the Cheltenham Gold Cup after which he was kidnapped. This is his first of two abductions, and he has to find out why. Seemingly unimportant anecdotes about accountancy turn out to be critical. The tale sprints along, twisting and turning as it goes. It is a thumping good read, however possibly the least plausible of all DF's books, with some scenes absolutely outside the readers credibility - but this is Dick Francis, do we care???

Dick Francis brings in a different kind of hero, an accountant!

The story is very enjoyable. This novel differs from some of his others in that the hero actually has a sex life.

While, I would highly recommend this book, Francis does throw out a number of easy clues to figure out the true villian in the story.

In many ways this is a quintessential Francis novel, with a fairly normal, likeable hero put into a situation where he is subjected to physical and mental challenges. The plot here is pretty good, although somewhat far fetched. However, this novel varies from the typical successful Francis formuala by having a sexual interlude between the hero and a female supporting character quite early on in the story. This is unusual, since Francis' characters are typcially fairly chaste, but this has the addes uniqueness of having the supporting female character be an older woman who wants to experience sex and chooses the hero, barely recovered from a dangerous brush with criminal types, as her man. This is diverting mostly because it seems to me that it is so different from the norm! I was quite taken aback by this!

Dick Francis did it again; he kept me on the edge of my seat. Because the protagonist is an accountant, I was especially interested as my daughter is one also. I did not figure out the reason for Britten's abduction until the author revealed it. Fascinating and satisfying. I want my daughter to read it.

An accountant who is an amateur jockey finds himself being a target.
The usual good writing and interesting characters we have come to expect from Dick Francis.

Hard to dislike anything Dick Francis writes. He writes so well.
Risk, like all his books, is definitely worth a read and probably a re-read, but it is not one of his best.
The story line is about an accountant who is an amateur jockey. Enjoy it and get another one by him to enjoy even more.

Much, much better than I'd hoped :)
Young accountant Roland Britten is kidnapped (twice!) and has no clue as to why this should've happened to him - a non-descript, normal, guy. But as old enemies and friends seem suddenly to change their behaviour towards him, he begins to suspect foul play. The only problem is - he doesn't know how best to avoid the traps that await him, before something really terminal happens...
I didn't know I'd enjoy this book so much - from the reviews it was supposed to be more average than it proved. Even if I'm a fan of Mr. Francis', I am trying to be objective - and I think this one stands on the same row as "The Danger", "Rat Race" and "Proof".
A very enjoyable mystery.

Most Dick Francis novels begin with a strange happenstance stumbled onto by an intrepid hero who soon finds himself beat up and bound, fighting to survive, before he solves the crime and gets away with the girl. This one began with a hero who wakes to find himself locked up, without knowing why. The hero, Roland Britten, is an accountant who rides racehorses as an amateur. During his incarceration, he goes over his entire life trying to figure out who locked him up. He finds he's been put in a sail locker on a boat, and manages a daring escape onto the island of Minorca, where a spinster named Hilary Pinlock helps him evade his captors. Hilary proves to be a valuable ally later in the story, as well. Upon returning to England, Roland begins an investigation into a few embezzlers his testimony had sent to prison, as well as returning to work and trying to work out some puzzling discrepancies in the accounts of some clients. After riding in another weekend race, Roland is kidnapped again for several days, and then mysteriously let go. The location of his prison provides a few more clues to his captors, and Roland keeps digging. He meets a trainer's daughter who catches his fancy, and spends time romancing her while unraveling the mystery. When he finally figures out who kidnapped him and why, he stages a meeting with the culprits, who have friends he hadn't counted on. Roland finds himself bound again while the villains escape. He is eventually rescued by his love interest and Hilary Pinlock, and explains the whole scenario, wrapping up the story. Like most Dick Francis novels, this one is peopled with colorful, English characters that liven up the darker violence and mystery. This one didn't disappoint at any turn.

Francis does not stray from his famous mystery formula in Risk: an easy-going unmarried professional man (usually an amateur or ex-jockey) of scrupulous moral character unwittingly steps into the criminal plots of a client or acquaintance, and he must go to great lengths risking life, limb, and reputation in order to set things right again. He will fall in love with a beautiful and almost unattainable woman, he will get beaten up several times, and he will face a moral dilemma when a friend or family member is implicated in the criminal plot.

In the hands of a less capable writer this sort of formula could (and often does) produce the most unremarkable sort of mystery fiction, but Francis writes refreshingly clear prose and creates intriguing characters whose solid personalities shine through their somewhat ordinary personal lives.

As in his other novels Francis uses the story to explore the day to day activities of the profession practiced by the protagonist (such as politician, photographer, jockey, sommelier, jeweler, etc.). This novel follows an accountant and, unlike many of the other professions he explores, Francis fails to make accounting exciting or even interesting. (To his credit it is probably impossible to make corporate accounting interesting.) The kidnapping chapters in Risk, however, are perhaps the most exciting scenes that Francis has written.

Overall Risk is the typical Francis mystery thriller; a fast-paced, well written mystery sans any graphic sex or gross-out violence. Not on the level with Hammett, Christie, Sayers, etc., but a nice read nonetheless. I give it a B-.