Whip Hand

Dick Francis

Apr 2022 · RB Media · Narrated by Simon Prebble

About this audiobook

By the end of the week Sid Halley didn’t have just one job, but three. When the latest of three prize-winning horses, all with promising futures, inexplicably putters out at the track, a trainer’s wife suspects foul play and asks Sid to watch
their latest great acquisition—Tri-Nitro—to ensure he doesn’t come to the same end. Then Sid’s ex-wife Jenny, still full of bitterness, is accused of fraud after she is innocently duped by a con artist into parting with thousands in a charity scam.
And even more, top brass of the Security Service solicits Sid to find out if one of his investigators is receiving hush money.

Like all of Francis’ characters, Sid’s sleuthing brings him back to the track and the stable, and he feels the familiar regret and nostalgia for the racing life that must always elude him. At the height of his career, Sid’s arm was shattered under the
crushing weight of his falling horse. Now a mechanical arm reminds him of lost hopes and the terrible price the passion to win extracts from a racer’s life.

About the author

Dick Francis was born in Wales on October 31, 1920. Because his father was a professional steeplechase jockey and a stable manager, Francis grew up around horses, and after a stint as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he became a steeplechase jockey himself, turning professional in 1948. He was named champion jockey of the 1953-54 racing season by the British National Hunt after winning more than 350 races and was retained as jockey to the queen mother for four seasons. When he retired from racing in 1957 at the age of 36, Francis went to work as a racing correspondent for the Sunday Express, a London paper, where he worked for 16 years. In the early sixties, he decided to combine his love of mysteries with his knowledge of the racing world, and published Dead Cert in 1962. Set mostly in the racing world, he has written more than 40 novels including Forfeit, Blood Sport, Slay-Ride, Odds Against, Flying Finish, Smoke Screen, High Stakes, and Long Shot. He wrote his last four books Dead Heat, Silks, Even Money, and Crossfire with his son Felix Francis. He has received numerous awards including the Silver Dagger award from Britain's Crime Writers Association for For Kicks, the Gold Dagger award for Whip Hand, the Diamond Dagger award in 1990, and three Edgar awards. He died on February 14, 2010 at the age of 89.