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Various persons of my acquaintance have been trying to convince me for some time to read Dick Francis, but ever since I had that dream about Dick Francis books I have deliberately abstained on the principle that it's clearly much funnier if I never read a Dick Francis book, ever.
Or at least this was the case until a few months ago, when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
genarti were in the car, and she started explaining to me the Dick Francis plot in which Our Hero has to do high-pressure detective work while undercover on a train where there's a bunch of horses AND a dangerous criminal AND ALSO a troupe of actors pretending to be ordinary horse-racing train passengers WHILE IN FACT conducting a week-long murder mystery dinner theater.
skygiants: I cannot believe the number of Dick Francis plots you've attempted to explain to me over the years without ever telling me about the WEEK-LONG MURDER MYSTERY DINNER THEATER!
genarti: I mean, yes, but it seemed like you didn't really want to read Dick Francis books and I didn't think it would be fair!
The point is: I have now broken my vow and read The Edge, the Dick Francis book set on a train featuring a week-long murder mystery dinner theater.
Our Hero is a nice young man who is secretly heir to a vast fortune, but prefers to spend his days undercover as a member of the SECRET RACECOURSE POLICE. Are the secret racecourse police a real thing? I don't know, but this was introduced on the first page and it was already everything that I had expected a Dick Francis novel to be.
Anyway, his latest job is to stop a Serious Racing Criminal from destroying the good times of everyone on the BIG CANADIAN RACING TRAIN, whence the horses and the murder mystery dinner theater. His bosses want him to go undercover as a Young Racing Millionaire. Instead, he decides to go undercover as a member of the murder mystery acting troupe who is, himself, undercover as a waiter -- i.e. all the other waiters think he's there as an undercover actor, and keep asking him when his big scene is coming up in between waiting tables. This is an amazing plot premise and Dick Francis should feel really good about it, especially when it involves our competent racing cop secret millionaire hero getting increasingly stressed out about a.) the impossibility of foiling or even guessing the villain's plans while b.) also making sure everyone has enough ice for their drinks, why is everyone always having FOUR COURSE meals, being a waiter is quite difficult it turns out??
Besides the actors, the horses, and the villain, other important players include:
- the hypercompetent project manager who serves as the love interest whenever either she or Our Hero have spare time, which is really not very often, she's kind of busy coordinating a major event?
- the Canadian cop who is Our Hero's contact on the ground, except he almost never actually contacts the Canadian cop, he keeps in touch with him by calling his elderly mother, who is having the BEST time being the secret contact in an Important Criminal Racing Case
- The Richest Millionaire In Canada and his Troubled Family, who are all on the train For The Good Of Canadian Racing
- tremendous amounts of lovingly described beautiful Canadian scenery
I enjoyed this book a lot, but perhaps the oddest thing about the reading experience was how much it made clear to me how my expectations have been trained on mysteries and Gothics. As a result, every time Dick Francis spent a fair amount of page space on a sympathetic or innocuous character, I'd start looking at them suspiciously: 'this horse-racing couple is Too Nice, they're CLEARLY not what they seem!' 'Our Hero has noticed the innocuous fake villain of the murder mystery dinner theater mingling inconspicuously with the passengers nearly ten times already, I bet he's wrapped up somehow in The Plot!'
But in fact all of my suspicions were completely unfounded; the villains are all very obviously villains from the moment they're introduced, and the suspense comes one hundred percent from the how and not at all from the who. I'm assuming this is where the actual genre line comes in dividing Novels Of Suspense from Novels Of Romantic Suspense from Mystery Novels; in mysteries, you're obviously expected to guess who the murderer is, while in Gothics/Romantic Suspense the most obviously villainous person invariably turns out to be the hero.
Or at least this was the case until a few months ago, when
genarti were in the car, and she started explaining to me the Dick Francis plot in which Our Hero has to do high-pressure detective work while undercover on a train where there's a bunch of horses AND a dangerous criminal AND ALSO a troupe of actors pretending to be ordinary horse-racing train passengers WHILE IN FACT conducting a week-long murder mystery dinner theater.skygiants: I cannot believe the number of Dick Francis plots you've attempted to explain to me over the years without ever telling me about the WEEK-LONG MURDER MYSTERY DINNER THEATER!genarti: I mean, yes, but it seemed like you didn't really want to read Dick Francis books and I didn't think it would be fair! The point is: I have now broken my vow and read The Edge, the Dick Francis book set on a train featuring a week-long murder mystery dinner theater.
Our Hero is a nice young man who is secretly heir to a vast fortune, but prefers to spend his days undercover as a member of the SECRET RACECOURSE POLICE. Are the secret racecourse police a real thing? I don't know, but this was introduced on the first page and it was already everything that I had expected a Dick Francis novel to be.
Anyway, his latest job is to stop a Serious Racing Criminal from destroying the good times of everyone on the BIG CANADIAN RACING TRAIN, whence the horses and the murder mystery dinner theater. His bosses want him to go undercover as a Young Racing Millionaire. Instead, he decides to go undercover as a member of the murder mystery acting troupe who is, himself, undercover as a waiter -- i.e. all the other waiters think he's there as an undercover actor, and keep asking him when his big scene is coming up in between waiting tables. This is an amazing plot premise and Dick Francis should feel really good about it, especially when it involves our competent racing cop secret millionaire hero getting increasingly stressed out about a.) the impossibility of foiling or even guessing the villain's plans while b.) also making sure everyone has enough ice for their drinks, why is everyone always having FOUR COURSE meals, being a waiter is quite difficult it turns out??
Besides the actors, the horses, and the villain, other important players include:
- the hypercompetent project manager who serves as the love interest whenever either she or Our Hero have spare time, which is really not very often, she's kind of busy coordinating a major event?
- the Canadian cop who is Our Hero's contact on the ground, except he almost never actually contacts the Canadian cop, he keeps in touch with him by calling his elderly mother, who is having the BEST time being the secret contact in an Important Criminal Racing Case
- The Richest Millionaire In Canada and his Troubled Family, who are all on the train For The Good Of Canadian Racing
- tremendous amounts of lovingly described beautiful Canadian scenery
I enjoyed this book a lot, but perhaps the oddest thing about the reading experience was how much it made clear to me how my expectations have been trained on mysteries and Gothics. As a result, every time Dick Francis spent a fair amount of page space on a sympathetic or innocuous character, I'd start looking at them suspiciously: 'this horse-racing couple is Too Nice, they're CLEARLY not what they seem!' 'Our Hero has noticed the innocuous fake villain of the murder mystery dinner theater mingling inconspicuously with the passengers nearly ten times already, I bet he's wrapped up somehow in The Plot!'
But in fact all of my suspicions were completely unfounded; the villains are all very obviously villains from the moment they're introduced, and the suspense comes one hundred percent from the how and not at all from the who. I'm assuming this is where the actual genre line comes in dividing Novels Of Suspense from Novels Of Romantic Suspense from Mystery Novels; in mysteries, you're obviously expected to guess who the murderer is, while in Gothics/Romantic Suspense the most obviously villainous person invariably turns out to be the hero.
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"Being a love interest when they're not busy with something else" is pretty typical of Francis romantic subplots, actually. There's several where the heroine actually informs the hero upfront of this, which he takes with good grace because hey, she was honest and he loves his job too and being an air traffic controller/the headmistress of a very respected girls' school/etc is very important!
You are correct about the placement of the mystery angle (how and/or why rather than who) in suspense vs. mystery. I think there's a few Francis novels where the identity of the villain is mysterious but it's not his usual MO.
Isn't the elderly mom the best? She was my favorite.
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I think what misled me really is all the time I've spent reading Gothics, which much more about this sense that NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED, NO ONE IS WHAT THEY SEEM. Whereas in this Dick Francis, at least, if people aren't what they seem, it's just because they are smarter/kinder/have more of a heart of gold than first impressions would perhaps imply, and the people who already seem smart/kind/competent are indeed so.
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