Triple Crown

August 8, 2016
Bestseller Francis’s less than inspired third horse-racing mystery featuring Jefferson Hinkley (after 2015’s Front Runner) takes Jeff, who works for the Integrity Service of the British Horseracing Authority, across the pond to assist a colleague in the U.S. Tony Andretti, the deputy director of the American Federal Anti-corruption in Sport Agency, suspects that one of his racing investigators has been tipping off the bad guys. Jeff is intrigued by the assignment, which coincides with the lead-up to the Triple Crown, and soon finds ample reason to support Tony’s fears after an undercover operation goes fatally awry. In an effort to flush out the culprit, Jeff goes undercover in the stables of George Raworth, the trainer of the Kentucky Derby winner, Fire Point, who may have benefited from the sudden illness that eliminated some of the competition. The high stakes and American setting compensate only in part for a familiar story line and a lead who’s less rounded than a typical hero of a similarly themed Dick Francis novel. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock.

Continuing his slow emergence from his father's shadow, Francis (Dick Francis's Damage, 2014, etc.) packs his very English hero off on a secret mission to America, with mixed results.Tony Andretti, the deputy director of the Federal Anti-Corruption in Sports Agency, is convinced something's rotten in the state of New York. But his earlier investigation of Belmont trainer Adam Mitchell, whom he suspected of illegal doping, went so badly awry that he's convinced FACSA itself harbors a mole. So he asks Jefferson Hinkley, of the British Horseracing Association's Integrity Service, to go undercover, posing as a visitor looking to pick up tips from the Americans he admires while he secretly does exactly the opposite. Although he's not eager to follow in the footsteps of Jason Connor, the Sports Illustrated reporter who died suddenly after agreeing to help Tony in the earlier case, Jeff is intrigued by the prospect of witnessing American horse racing's Triple Crown--the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes--up close while he casts a cold eye on the government agency charged with keeping these starry events legit. His visit to America gives Jeff many opportunities to compare American and British racing customs, to the invariable advantage of the latter, before a second anti-doping raid, this one against Churchill Downs trainer Hayden Ryder, goes disastrously wrong, leaving Jeff to bid farewell to the basically interchangeable colleagues/suspects in FACSA's Racing section and settle into a secondary assignment posing as a groom in the stables of George Raworth. Both cases are at length wound up, neither one compellingly.American readers willing to be lectured about the many ways British racing is better will be rewarded by some serviceable, if labored, sleuthing, a good deal of information about the sport, and a bittersweet ending that's the best thing here. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2016
Felix Francis continues the run of his Dick Francis novels (after his father) with this sixth solo racetrack mystery, and it's another well-crafted nail-biter. The chief difference between Dick Francis' and his son's mysteries is that the suspense in Francis pere's work comes from his spare yet achingly right style; he was a master of using a few strokes to create scenes and character. Felix Francis has his father's gift for deft plotting and for creating memorable characters, but his prose is much more expansive. Here Francis brings back series hero Jefferson Hinkley (seen before in Damage, 2014, and Front Runner, 2015). Hinkley, 33, is a former British army soldier in Afghanistan, currently an undercover investigator with the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). This time the Brits loan Hinkley out to the American equivalent of the BHA, an agency devoted to preventing corruption in racing. Charged with the needle-in-a-haystack task of discovering who within the organization is working as an informant, Hinkley follows the Triple Crown season, working as a groom at Belmont Park in New York, uncovering a trail of suddenly sick horses, and finally exposing a shatteringly devious plot to win the Triple Crown. As in all novels in the Francis line, readers will learn a great deal about horses, racetracks, and, here, the tough life of grooms. The action builds to a hold-your-breath climax and brilliant resolution. Another winner in the Francis stable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)