A Bad Month for Authors

And more specifically, for authors that I like. I read yesterday that British author Dick Francis passed away. Although not coming as much of a surprise as Robert B. Parker, Dick Francis was another author whose books I had squirreled away over time, and now come back to re-read whenever I can.

I liked his style of writing because it was always written in the first person, and so the progression of the plot and most of the major developments happened right in front of the main character, and you could see how he would respond to things. The main character was essentially the same guy, with a different job, skills, or life experience, but you could count on liking him.

I first started reading Dick Francis after buying a used paperback somewhere years ago, and right away I knew that he was a favorite. Looking back now I realize that I picked a tough book to start with – Hot Money, which included a huge amount of characters and relationships that you (and the main character) are left to sort out. Still, the ending was classic, and I went on to read the other 40+ novels over the next year or so. For the record, my favorites:

The Edge – The main character is an undercover horse racing official who tracks down villains on the race track, but is challenged to go undercover on a train trip across Canada to catch a particularly sneaky bad guy. Orient Express with a modern tilt – great fun.

For Kicks – Again a character swallows his pride and goes undercover to catch the bad guys – this time as a stable boy in some of the scariest horse stables in the country. Good fun and a classic Dick Francis finish.

There are lots more, and I had better get my collection in order and start going through them again. Towards the end Dick Francis was co-writing with one of his sons, so it remains to be seen whether his son will continue writing on his own. It is always interesting to see just how much of these books were written by the author and how much by others.