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Sep. 8th, 2018 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsVarious 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, whengenarti 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.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-09 12:18 am (UTC)But in golden age mysteries, the authors are trying to stump you, so usually the obvious villain is a red herring although I suppose a particularly devious mystery writer might fling up an extremely obvious villain just so experienced mystery readers will go COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE HIM, MUCH TOO OBVIOUS... and then it is him. No one suspects the devious foreign count with a mustache that he literally twirls!
Also weeklong murder mystery dinner theater is a glorious premise for a mystery novel and I applaud Francis for deploying it.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-09 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-09 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-09 06:47 pm (UTC)But generally I feel like mysteries/gothics have trained me to pay attention to Suspicious Writer Focus AND Suspicious Writer Avoidance in a way that doesn't really seem to be the way suspense works, or at least not the way Francis works.