FRANCIS, Dick

“Logic doesn't stop you feeling. You can behave logically and it can hurt like hell. Or it can comfort you. Or release you. Or all at the same time”

Richard "Dick" Stanley Francis was a British crime writer and former steeplechase jockey and his novels centre on horse racing in England. He was born in Coedcanlas, Pembrokeshire, Wales and grew up in Berkshire, England. The son of a jockey and stable manager, Francis left school at 15 with no qualifications intending to become a jockey, becoming a trainer in 1938. During the war he served in the RAF before returning to become a full time jockey winning over 350 races and serving as jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. 

His first book was an autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) for which he refused a ghostwriter. The book’s success led him to becoming the racing correspondent for London’s Sunday Express Newspaper, a job he remained in for 16 years. All Francis’ thrillers deal with crime in the horse racing world and he rarely re-used lead characters with only two leads being used more than once; injured ex-jockey turned private investigator Sid Halley (Odds Against, Whip Hand, Come to Grief, Under Orders) and Kit Fielding (Break In and Bolt). More than forty of his novels became international best sellers.