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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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I really love a lot of things about Dick Francis (including his -- or I guess I should say their, given Mary -- prose), but I especially enjoy the clear conviction that everybody wants to know about competent people doing their thing, whether their thing is steeplechase jockeying or murder investigations or wine sales or fancy train cuisine. And as many of his heroes are working-class as secret millionaires, and he recognizes that things like serving drinks with competent service profession invisibility take plenty of skill. It's a nice change from aristocratic heroes and house parties, as much as I love several aristocratic heroes and oh-dear-your-class-issues-are-showing authors. (And I knew he was a steeplechase jockey and horse trainer and a high school drop out, but wikipedia has just told me that Mary Francis was a former pilot?? That explains some things and also is super cool!)
And all his characters' romances seem to stem from a recognition of the other's intelligence/perceptiveness/competence/all three, with prettiness also a factor but a secondary one. It's great! And I love Nell in this one, and her clipboard, and how she's clearly attracted to Tor but also she has an event to run, if you want more than five minutes from her at a stretch try sometime next week.
(Also now I want to read this one again, and I just reread it last year. Hoist on my own petard!)
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And as much as I laughed at SECRET MILLIONAIRE WORKS AT THE RACEHORSE, I did appreciate that he was a millionaire WITH a real job, who worked hard at his real job, and the millionaire factor was mostly just to make it plot-easy that he could stay at fancy hotels and so forth when required for disguise!
(Also, as I mentioned to you, it would have been very easy in the hands of another writer for Nell/Tor to slip over for me into STOP BOTHERING HER SHE'S BUSY, but Francis handles it just deftly enough that I am never annoyed!)
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Also, yes, totally agreed about Tor being a millionaire with a real job. I'm not sure Francis really grokked what it was like to not want to work hard at a job one was well suited for, tbh.