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Dick Francis  (Richard Stanley Francis)

Originally a very successful steeplechase jockey (born 1920), National Hunt Champion and riding horses for the Queen Mother, Francis turned to writing crime novels when his riding career ended. He has become as successful a writer as he was as a rider.

His crime novels always has horses or riding as a theme, most of them are set in racing circles. Generally, his heroes either starts as a horseman, or ends as one.

The main character often is a loner, with a complicated family history. If not a pro in the horse world, he is a pro in some other, often very arcane, profession - glass blower, travel book writer etc.

He wrote his autobiography, The Sport of Queens in 1957. Two books has been written about Francis, Melvin Barnes' Dick Francis and J. Madison Davis' Dick Francis (Twayne's English Authors Series, No 464). In addition to his crime stories, Francis has written A Jockey's Life, a biography of Lester Piggott, a jockey as famous as Francis himself.

List of books:

Many of his books are also available as audiobooks. In addition, a number of books has been published as omnibuses, containing two or three novels. These are value for money.

[30.04.03]A must for the reader of modern crime novels, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction gives a encyclopedic view of post-war crime fiction. For non-English readers it is a drawback that very little non-English material is included, but it is a great fountain of facts about English language authors. Its scope is strictly crime, leaving thrillers out - it still fills 780 pages, so you'll have more than enough to read.
More Mammoth Encyclopedias or Mammoth Books of a surprisingly wide range of subjects - Erotic photography, Shaggy Dog stories, Murder and Science and so on....