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genarti's favorite Dick Francis novels, so I ended up checking it out earlier this year when I needed to test my e-reader's library book functionality and couldn't remember anything else on my list that was immediately available.

To The Hilt is about a man who just wants to paint the core of the human spirit as represented through golf and instead is forced by circumstances to solve an embezzlement case, temporarily stealing a racehorse along the way. To be honest I have already forgotten much of the details of the actual plot; the important elements that I do remember:

- protagonist Alexander Kinloch's intense and profound Golf Art

(I painted the passions of golf as much as its physical scenery, and I'd learned it was the raw emotion, the conflict within the self, that sold the pictures [...] It was golfers who bought my work, and they bought it for its core of struggle)

- Chris Young, Alexander's PI sidekick/bodyguard, a Master Of Disguise who spends most of his time onscreen posing as Alexander's glamorous secretary and/or girlfriend

(Emily eyed Chris with obvious speculation, not doubting his/her gender but wondering if the tall leggy dark-haired presence in black tights, short inappropriate skirt and baggy black sweater was a serious girlfriend, in view of the glue that kept him ever and only a short pace away from my side. Unsurprisingly, Alexander and Chris appear to be responsible for more than half the Dick Francis fanfics on the AO3)

- the vehement feud between Alexander's uncle, a Scottish laird who has hidden several priceless historical treasures in and around his home, and the elderly museum appraisers who are determined to capture them for cultural heritage institutions No Matter What It Takes; this is absolutely irrelevant to the plot but significant to the book because the elderly museum appraiser is also, delightfully, Alexander's Artistic Muse

- the amazingly over-the-top sequence at the end in which the protagonist is tied up and extensively tortured by several stressed-out and sadistic embezzlers until Dreamy Chris Young saves him by sexily luring a bunch of drunken football fans into a bus and then zooming the entire busload over to the scene of the crime

Of all the Dick Francises I've read so far, this is definitely the one that surprised me the most; I vaguely knew to expect and look forward to Chris Young, but had no way to prepare for the passions of golf.

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And this is why I return to Dick Francis over and over again. His books are not all winners, but the best ones are such fun surprises.

I LOVE the museum appraiser, she's great. And obviously, Chris Young, sexy cross-dressing PI deserves his own book.

Chris Young deserves his own book!! Alexander can be the sidekick this time!

I have only read one Dick Francis novel but it was THIS Dick Francis novel and if you're going to do just one, this one is probably a good choice. The part at the end where Alexander gets burned on the grill! My god! (I wanted more h/c, or perhaps just more c, as there was plenty of h. I'm assuming the Chris/Alexander fics on AO3 offer this! Or not, you never really know where fandom will go with a thing.)

Also, the Golf Art. And the book takes it entirely seriously! As it has to, because it would all fall apart if it ever tried to wink at the audience. But at the same time... Golf Art.

Beth keeps telling me that Dick Francis Loves Whump but despite having read several priors I truly did not understand the degree to which Dick Francis Loved Whump until I read this extended medieval-dungeon torture sequence, the essence of That Escalated Quickly!!

IT'S SO STRAIGHT-FACED ABOUT THE GOLF ART AND I BURST OUT LAUGHING EVERY TIME.

I love To the Hilt with a deeply uncritical passion (almost exactly the opposite of my feelings towards golf :D )

Reading it was a delightful experience for me!

Unsurprisingly, Alexander and Chris appear to be responsible for more than half the Dick Francis fanfics on the AO3

I'm surprised they're not responsible for an anime.

In my head, it's like a very weird Phoenix Wright spin-off.

There are a lot of Dick Francis novels that could very easily become Phoenix Wright cases, I think ....

Me too, now that you mention it. There's still time!

Wait, golf? No horses?

You missed this part: temporarily stealing a racehorse along the way.

I mean, to be fair, there was a lot going on in that sentence.

Alexander (Al) has an ex-ish wife who's a horse trainer, and there's a beloved (to others) racehorse at issue and the usual equine background radiation, but yeah, Al is personally and artistically much more obsessed with golf.

Some Dick Francis heroes are born into horse plots, some achieve horse plots, and some have horse plots thrust upon 'em.

Points for that line - I've enjoyed every Dick Francis novel I've read, and not all of them were directly about horses. But I did start to notice some repeated meals.

asjd;klfjs thank you, I think you've finally achieved peak explanation of Dick Francis novels

The hero cares about golf much more than horses, but since Dick Francis still cares about horses much more than golf, the horse:golf onscreen ratio still tilts heavily towards the horse ....

...I should re-read this one. I unpacked my Francis books last summer, but only re-read a couple of them.

I expect my Francis intake may increase as I start to travel again and begin looking for easily Kobo-downloadable ebooks, since the library seems to have a bunch of them!

It's the best Dick Francis book. Though I also enjoy The Edge, about a murder mystery on a race train, a lot. It doesn't have the Golf Art, but it does have another master of disguise who does so by simply... CURLING HIS HAIR. Alas, he doesn't cross dress.

The Edge was the first one I read! I'd gone years like "I don't really want to read Dick Francis, it's more fun trying to make

genarti describe them to me without really understanding them" and then one day she described the undercover-on-a-murder-mystery-train plot and I was like, well, all right, this is the one that gets me, I guess.

my e-reader

What model, if I may ask?

It's a Kobo! I ... don't fully remember which model. I think maybe an Aura?

I ask because I've a Kobo Glo, and would be Very Interested Indeed in it having library book functionality. I've been considering upgrading anyway, as it has been getting slower with age, especially at opening all my down/side-loaded books, as my list Kobo-loaded books takes up much of its limited patience. How does the app work -- is it related to Libby/Overdrive?

For me it works with Overdrive -- I have it set up to automatically connect to my library account, and I can either check books out directly on the Kobo by browsing Overdrive, or check them out on the library website and then my Kobo will (theoretically) automatically download them when it's connected to WiFi. It works perfectly about 85% of the time!

...and then sometimes it will just refuse to download a book for unknown reasons and I'll have to load it up the old-fashioned way, by downloading the book from the library on my computer and transferring it to Kobo over USB. But mostly not.

Is it a function of the Kobo (like Pocket's articles) or an "unsupported beta" feature like the browser on mine?

It seems to be a function with all the more recent models!

An impetus to upgrade!

Thanks.

And my upgrade (to a Clara) arrived, and I'm already enjoying using Overdrive. As well as a more adjustable nightlight, more memory, faster responses, a sleep-cover that doesn't glitch, and no glitching my place when exiting a book for the first time.

... It may have been long past time to upgrade.

I had never read any Dick Francis before and I suspect I never will again, because I did not know what to DO with this book! It's so overblown! The sex scene is so bad! The mystery rollicks along brilliantly and the accountant dude is my fave, but it's so EXTRA! etc.

In better news though K has recalled she owes me a plate of waffles for reading this book.

edited because I forgot the crossdressing PI! who is 100% written as the romantic interest? did Francis KNOW he did that? did his editor? I need a drink.

Edited 2021-06-14 19:16 (UTC)

I HAVE NO IDEA IF FRANCIS KNEW IT. We all knew it! It seems really clear! however &cetera.

This is my third or fourth Francis at this point and the thing that keeps throwing me about them is that I understand this kind of extremely extra seventies paperback very well to a certain degree but I only understand it through the lens of the trashy Gothic, and the genre conventions are all just three steps sideways so I never have any idea what's going to happen. I know exactly who would have been the villain in the girl-meets-house thriller but the boy-meets-horse thriller catches me off-guard every time!

Anyway, I'm very glad you went on this journey with me and that you got a plate of waffles about it.

You have thoughts on To The Hilt! So do I!

I really love what Francis does with unreliable narrators in this one, with Al being all "Patsy had nothing to fear from me...I was never going to steal her inheritance" without entirely realising that even if he would never steal it, his stepfather wants to give it.

Also the entire sword hilt plot and Dick Francis just...not being able to write a pro-Bonnie Prince Charlie hero, which I appreciate.

Yeah, same! And I genuinely liked the Patsy dynamic in general and how it resolved in the end -- I mean, anyone would be taken aback by one's friends and colleagues abruptly turning out to be up for a night of SURPRISE GRILL TORTURE, but I appreciated that by the end it seemed like they were going to achieve a semi-functional semi-sibling relationship!

I seem to remember that the other half of the ao3 content is Alexander/His Uncle, although I might be wrong?

Anyway, yes! This book! I do admire Francis' way with characters, because honestly nothing makes a character seem incredibly true to life like them having a passionate and all-consuming interest for something incredibly tedious.

There is an enormous amount of Sid Halley/His Ex-Father-in-law

Ah, I probably have those confused!

I would have been deeply surprised but I guess ... sort of impressed .....? if half of fandom really had ignored the dreamy cross-dressing PI right in front of their faces to hyperfixate on Alexander's uncle!

I have, since learning that these novels were written jointly by Dick and Mary Francis, attributed that chunk of them from I think the late seventies and early eighties in which everyone gets tied up and beaten to, er, a fondness for the English vice.

You know, whatever floats their boat. I'm glad they had fun writing it!

To the Hilt was my very first Dick Francis book. I can't remember who recced it to me, but it was everything I could have hoped for. I agree with

osprey_archer that if you're going to read just one Dick Francis book, this is a good one.

I was going to say that the grill scene is peak Dick Francis whump, but then I remembered the stable scene in Nerve, and just all the psychological blackmail in Whip Hand.

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