Retired Cambridge professor Donald Aitcheson loves scouring antiquarian bookshops for secondhand treasures — as much as he loathes the scribbled marginalia from their previous owners. But when he comes upon an inscription in a volume of Robert...
Yes, the scarecrow, painted on the cover, is on the Short List. The line-up is Peter Lovesey’s strongest ever, for not only does it feature “Needle Match,” chosen by the Crime Writers’ Association as the best short story published in 2007,...
Philip St. Ives, the top professional go-between introduced last year in The Brass Go-Between, is back in action. In this new novel of intrigue, St. Ives is coerced by the Department of State into recovering the U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia. The...
When Kit Fielding, champion steeplechase jockey, finds that Princess Casilia, his chief patron, is facing serious trouble, he goes unhesitatingly to her aid. Neither realises that his instinctive support is the first step to a frightening battle...
Harrison Foster is a lawyer by training but works as a crisis manager for a London firm that specializes in such matters. Summoned to Newmarket after a fire in the Chadwick Stables slaughters six very valuable horses, including the short-priced...
Steven Scott owned nine racehorses and delighted in them, and he had friend, Jody Leeds, who trained them. Gradually, unwillingly, Steven discovered that Jody had been systematically cheating him of large sums of money. Not unnaturally he removed...
A bomb scare at Aintree halted the Grand National in 1997 and the racecourse was evacuated; twenty-two years earlier, Dick Francis had written a short story describing such an event at another course. Now, for the first time, Dick Francis has...
To a jockey, losing his licence is the equivalent of being struck off, or disbarred, or cashiered. When steeplechase rider Kelly Hughes lost his licence, his first feelings were of bewilderment and disbelief, for he was not guilty of the charges....