Dick Francis

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Dick Francis
Born	31 October 1920 (1920-10-31) (age 89) Lawrenny, south Wales
Occupation	Novelist, retired jockey
Nationality	British
Writing period	1957-present
Genres	Crime fiction
Dick Francis.com Official website

Dick Francis CBE (born Richard Stanley Francis on 31 October 1920) is a British horse racing crime writer and retired jockey.

Personal life

Francis was born in Lawrenny, south Wales, in October 1920, the son of a jockey and stable manager.^[1] He left school at 15 without any qualifications,^[2] with the intention of becoming a jockey and became a trainer in 1938.^[3] During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force, piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane.^[2] In 1945, he met his future wife, Mary Margaret Brenchley, whom he married in 1947; they had two sons.^[2] Francis' wife died on 30 September 2000.^[2]

Horse racing career

After leaving the RAF in 1946 he became a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing.^[1] He won over 350 races, becoming champion jockey in the 1953-54 season.^[1]

From 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. In 1957 he was forced to retire from racing as the result of a serious fall. His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race.^[4]

Writing career

Dick Francis has written more than 40 international bestsellers and is widely acclaimed as one of the world's best thriller writers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) which led to him becoming the racing correspondent for the London Sunday Express, a position he held for 16 years. In 1962 he published his first thriller Dead Cert set in the world of racing. Subsequently he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his heroes held a variety of jobs from artist ( In the Frame and To the Hilt) to private investigator (Odds Against).

Francis is the only three time recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel, winning for Forfeit in 1970, Whip Hand in 1981, and Come To Grief] in 1996. Britain's Crime Writers Association awarded him its Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award in 1989. In 1996 he was given the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the highest honour bestowed by the MWA. He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. In 2003 he was honoured by being awarded the Gumshoe Awards' Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award.

Graham Lord's 1999 unauthorized biography Dick Francis: A Racing Life suggested his books had in fact been written by Francis' wife Mary. By all accounts Mary did much of the research and editing of Francis' later novels and stories and often worked collaboratively with her husband on each book's actual composition. After Mary's death in the year 2000 Francis wrote no new works until Under Orders (a racing term for when the horses are at the start and subject to the starter's orders) released on 26 September 2006. His next two books - Dead Heat in 2007 and Silks in 2008 - were co-written by his son Felix.

Dick Francis' manager (and co-author on recent books) is his son Felix Francis who left his post as teacher of A-Level Physics at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire in order to work for his father and who was the inspiration behind a leading character in the novel Twice Shy. His other son Merrick, formerly a racehorse trainer, later ran his own horse transport business, thus inspiring the novel Driving Force.

While not universally true, a typical Francis novel follows the basic premise:

• Stories are told through the eyes of one character in the first person.

• The narrators generally have professional involvement in the racing world - jockey, trainer, or owner and are always still connected in some obscure way eg. a friend or family member that was a jockey, or being a Jockey Club official.

• The location is often one of the centres of British racing, either Newmarket or Lambourn.

• The narrators goes about their business and then strange deaths or strange scams start to occur which they investigate. Along the way the narrators find themselves a murder target themselves.

• If not already involved they meet a love interest.

• The villains are brought to justice.

Books

See also

• John Francome

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} The Sport of Queens
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Obituary: Mary Francis". The Times. October 6, 2000. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article986938.ece. Retrieved 2009-10-18. 
3. ^ Cook, Bruce (March 21, 1989). "Novelist Dick Francis Still Rides The Wave Of Success In The Edge'". The Spokesman-Review (Spokane Chronicle). http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pyUSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1e8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6991,3915766&dq=dick+francis&hl=en. Retrieved 2009-10-18. 
4. ^ Philip, Robert (5 April 2002). "Grand National: Devon Loch's place in history". Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/horseracing/3025365/Grand-National-Devon-Lochs-place-in-history.html. Retrieved 2009-10-18. 

External links

• 2001 audio interview by Bill Thompson of Eye on Books, discussing the end of his writing.
• Official Dick Francis Website.
• Dick Francis Reading Group.
• Books by Dick Francis.