photo : acey harper / life image collection / getty images Dinner with Dick Francis by J. Madison Davis W hen I was a newly minted assistant professor , Twayne’s English Author Series contracted me to write an analysis of the Dick Francis novels. The only Francis novel I had read at that point had been enjoyable. The main character was a world-weary jockey coming to the end of his career, being pressured to fix races, and, despite threats, unwilling to do so. The hero was beaten up at least once, and his pain was described in a way that made me wince. Francis’s books were all set in the world of horse racing, but he did not use the same detective character over and over as is most common in mystery publishing. He wrote about jockeys and wine merchants and breeders and the great variety of people connected to racing. His publishing, I learned, had begun with a memoir of his own career as a champion steeplechase jockey, ultimately in the employ of the Queen Mother. He was approached to do the memoir after he retired because in his last year of racing a strange event occurred riding the Queen crime & mystery 16 WLT SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2016 Mother’s horse in the Grand National. The horse, Devon Loch, was hugely talented and popular, but, for reasons that sportsmen argued about for years and could never settle, Devon Loch rounded the turn far in the lead and, as it thundered toward the finish line, abruptly spread its legs and stopped. No one knew why. It was said that some horses have been thought to see imaginary fences pop up in front of them. Francis believed that the roar of the crowd was so intense that the horse panicked. In any case, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. It was an odd ending to a great career: many years as a champion jockey, but never winner of the Grand National. After his memoir The Sport of Queens was a bestseller , Francis decided to try writing a thriller. Dead Cert also turned out to be a major success, and he continued for the rest of his life to write one after another until he passed away in 2010. He is the only author who has won best novel of the yearfromtheMystery Writers of America for three different books. Never had I enjoyed reading through the entire output of a writer as I did reading through the Francis books. No, they weren’t what anyone would call great literature; however, they provided consistent pleasures. There was always something intriguing about some aspect of horse racing . There were clever little twists of plot. There was Francis’s great ability to convey the feeling of physical pain. As a jockey, he had broken his collarbone six times on each side and did not even know how many times he had broken ribs, stoically taping them up and pretending it hadn’t happened so that he could continue riding and being paid. Francis shaped his novels according to a loose formula, though not so predictably that it intruded upon one’s immersion in the story. The main character was a man who was suffering some sort of misfortune, his internal struggle compounding the external struggle involving a crime. He was usually a loner, although he had deep relationships, and he could not be bought, of course. He had a very strong sense of morality, but his highest morality was a powerful respect for the horse. The horse was beautiful, bighearted, and totally innocent in a world of human corruption. As best as I could I described the Francis formula and its variations in my book. I attempted to contact Francis to clarify a few issues, but I imagine he got mounds of fan mail, and just who was this professor from Erie, Pennsylvania, asking questions? I don’t recall receiving any answers except that he was out of town or busy writing a book or something that sounded like an assistant protecting the boss. When Dick Francis was published, however, I mailed him a copy and received a gracious letter. I knew that he owned...