Guilty Not Guilty

September 30, 2019
Bestseller Francis’s plodding fifth solo addition to his father’s horse-racing series (after 2018’s Crisis) has only a tangential connection to the turf. The Hon. William Gordon-Russell, a self-employed actuary who prefers to be called plain old Bill Russell, is preparing for his duties as a racetrack steward when he receives some devastating news: his beloved wife, Amelia, has been discovered strangled in their Oxfordshire home. Bill’s brother-in-law, Joe Bradbury, accuses Bill of the crime, and the police make him their prime suspect on the theory that he killed Amelia to collect on her life insurance. Bill, in turn, believes that Joe, who found the body and who’d sent Amelia threatening and harassing emails, is the murderer. After Bill is brought in for questioning, he becomes a pariah and sets out to prove his innocence and Joe’s guilt. Suspension of disbelief is lessened by such details as Bill believing, inaccurately, that leading questions are impermissible on cross-examination. The twist ending will surprise few mystery fans. That Francis has done much better work in the past suggests that a return to form is possible. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock (U.K.).

October 15, 2019
The husband and brother of an unstable woman who's been strangled get into a battle royal over which of them will get the other convicted of her murder. Fragile, childless art historian/curator Amelia Gordon-Russell always enjoyed cordial relations with her brother, High Court enforcement officer Joseph Bradbury, until three years ago, when their widowed mother, Mary Bradbury, provoked Joe by selling the family home and moving to smaller digs close to Amelia and her husband, freelance business consultant William Gordon-Russell, who doubles as an honorary steward at the Warwick racetrack. Even since that perceived slight, Joe's been increasingly hostile to Bill and increasingly intent on turning Amelia against him. When Amelia is found strangled by a dog's leash, Joe, who did the finding, is quick to accuse Bill--who'd unwisely acquired a police record for sex with a minor many years ago--of her murder and provide DS Dowdeswell of the Thames Valley Police with evidence against him. Dowdeswell and his cohort question Bill, question him again, hold him, release him, and give him many anxious hours before he produces an alibi that makes them give up on him. Now Bill, who's been struggling mightily to interest Dowdeswell in Joe as a possible suspect, finds himself taken more seriously. Joe, spluttering his innocence as loudly as he'd ever trumpeted Bill's guilt, finds himself first in a prison cell and then in the dock. The trial is suitably turbulent no matter who's on the stand, and at times it seems there'll never be a way to choose between the two men's stories. But Francis (Crisis, 2018, etc.), pulling out one of the hoariest clichés in the genre, provides a final twist that combines ambiguity and decisiveness. Virtually nothing about horses, despite the Francis byline, but a banquet of juicy he said, he said moments.

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Starred review from November 1, 2019
This is a departure for Francis, who coauthored four equestrian mysteries with his father, the renowned steeplechase jockey and writer Dick Francis; after his father's death, Francis wrote nine mysteries on his own, still with A Dick Francis Novel emblazoned on the covers. The departure here is from the racing world, long the backdrop of all Dick Francis and Felix Francis mysteries. We do begin with a typical Francis on-the-racetrack shock: racing steward Bill Russell learns, just before the races at Warwick Racecourse, that his wife has been murdered at home. But the racing connection is soon left behind; Russell, a former amateur steeplechase jockey, is now just a volunteer steward and a self-employed business consultant. We move very quickly to new ground, as Russell, who narrates the story, becomes the prime suspect in his wife's murder. The story is reminiscent of Joseph Finder's thrillers, in which an ordinary man is suddenly plunged into an extraordinary situation, with the noose tightening on every page. Francis writes a stunning paranoid thriller here, with all evidence pointing against Russell, friends and acquaintances shunning him, and the media condemning him (seizing on the fact that he's the son of an earl, and was raised in a castle in Wales). Fans who may be disappointed at the loss of a solid racing connection will soon cheer for this dark horse.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)