| Publisher | Severn House |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 27 February 2015 |
| ISBN-10 | 0727884867 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0727884862 |
| Format | hardcover |
| Pages | 208 |
| Price | £ 19.99 |
Dead Certainty
by
Jump jockey Harry Radcliffe is out of action after a fall – but ghost-writing an autobiography for a veteran trainer turns out to be even more dangerous.
Review
Dead Certainty comes hammering in on the heels of the late Dick Francis like an over-excited steeplechase field. And it’s a definite white-knuckle ride to the finishing line.
Harry Radcliffe is a jump jockey who’s put out of action by a crashing fall. While his shattered bones knit and he waits to see whether he’ll ever race again, he agrees reluctantly to ghost-write an autobiography for veteran trainer Elspeth Maudsley, who is about to retire. But a series of accidents and attacks suggest that someone’s not over-enamoured of Harry’s literary exploits.
Dead Certainty is a very decent page-turner which definitely follows in the hoof-prints of Francis. It always seems a bit unfair to compare every horse-racing mystery to those of the Master, but it’s inevitable – especially when you have a stiff upper lip hero, a good egg boss, the unattainable woman (in this case Harry’s estranged wife), dodgy sorts with odd names, and racecourse action. Alongside all of this is Harry’s badly disabled half-sister Silvie, who he is devoted to. There’s mystery surrounding her, as well.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by Harry, who has the feel of being written by a woman – and yes, I reckon I can almost always tell the gender of an author when they’re using initials or a pseudonym! Ex-wife Annabel is a counsellor as well as having a sideline in faith-healing, which Harry seems to accept very non-cynically, both for him and his accident-prone moggy. And his eulogies to Silvie veer on the soppy at times.
I’m not entirely convinced that Glenis Wilson plays fair with information as she goes along, which means a rather clumsy summing-up scene at the end. And I’m not sure either that the police, who take a back seat in the book, would accept some of the deliveries from Harry so unquestioningly. And I bet every writer I know wishes they could knock out a book as effortlessly as Harry (without the presence of agents or publishers) – a man whose only previous writing experience is a tips column in a racing paper!
But if you’re missing Dick Francis like hell, Dead Certainty is certainly worth a punt.
Harry Radcliffe is a jump jockey who’s put out of action by a crashing fall. While his shattered bones knit and he waits to see whether he’ll ever race again, he agrees reluctantly to ghost-write an autobiography for veteran trainer Elspeth Maudsley, who is about to retire. But a series of accidents and attacks suggest that someone’s not over-enamoured of Harry’s literary exploits.
Dead Certainty is a very decent page-turner which definitely follows in the hoof-prints of Francis. It always seems a bit unfair to compare every horse-racing mystery to those of the Master, but it’s inevitable – especially when you have a stiff upper lip hero, a good egg boss, the unattainable woman (in this case Harry’s estranged wife), dodgy sorts with odd names, and racecourse action. Alongside all of this is Harry’s badly disabled half-sister Silvie, who he is devoted to. There’s mystery surrounding her, as well.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by Harry, who has the feel of being written by a woman – and yes, I reckon I can almost always tell the gender of an author when they’re using initials or a pseudonym! Ex-wife Annabel is a counsellor as well as having a sideline in faith-healing, which Harry seems to accept very non-cynically, both for him and his accident-prone moggy. And his eulogies to Silvie veer on the soppy at times.
I’m not entirely convinced that Glenis Wilson plays fair with information as she goes along, which means a rather clumsy summing-up scene at the end. And I’m not sure either that the police, who take a back seat in the book, would accept some of the deliveries from Harry so unquestioningly. And I bet every writer I know wishes they could knock out a book as effortlessly as Harry (without the presence of agents or publishers) – a man whose only previous writing experience is a tips column in a racing paper!
But if you’re missing Dick Francis like hell, Dead Certainty is certainly worth a punt.
Reviewed 20 June 2015 by Sharon Wheeler
