| Title | : | Longshot |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0330319582 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780330319584 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 |
| Publication | : | First published October 2, 1990 |
Longshot Reviews
-
Writer John Kendall has always specialized in writing non-fiction survival guides, teaching people how to survive in the most rugged and unforgiving circumstances. Now, he has finally written a novel and his agent has sold it to a publisher. However, it will still be months before the book is actually released and begins to earn royalties (assuming it ever does). In the meantime, even living very frugally, Kendall has gone through the advance for the book and is in desperate need of money.
His agent hooks him up with a wealthy horse trainer, Tremayne Vickers, who would like to hire Kendall to write his biography. Kendall agrees to take the job, especially since it includes lodging in Vickers' large home while Kendall interviews Vickers and begins writing the book.
Kendall arrives at the Vickers farm to find a large and very interesting family living in or near Vickers' home. Most all of them are involved in the racing world in one way or another and very quickly Kendall is introduced to it as well. Some of the family members are very welcoming and nice; a couple of them are jerks, and the family has suffered a recent blow when one of the family members has been convicted of manslaughter. He somehow accidentally strangled a young woman at a party, but apparently in this jurisdiction, the crime is not enough to merit a term in prison because the guy is still footloose and fancy free and generally being a pain in the butt, especially to Kendall.
It soon turns out that another young woman associated with the farm--a trainer--has also been strangled to death and then buried in the woods nearby. Once her remains are discovered, the police will be looking closely at the Vickers family to see if there is a link between the two crimes. Inevitably, poor John Kendall will get caught up in the mess and will almost certainly need all of those survival skills he's been writing about if he's going to survive.
Kendall is a typical Dick Francis hero--bright, resilient, strong, pleasant, and a man that others almost always underestimate. This book is a bit unusual in that, unlike virtually all other Dick Francis novels, the hero has no love interest. There are a number of attractive women about, but they are all taken and so there is no one to whom Kendall might turn.
The book is fine and it's a quick read. I'm giving it three stars rather than four because it falls short of most other Francis novels in the quality of the villain. There clearly is a villain lurking here, but he's not nearly as mean, nasty, dangerous, degenerate, or threatening as most of the others that Francis has created, and the book suffers a bit as a result. -
What is there to say about Dick Francis? As I think about all of his books (yes, this review covers all of his books, and yes I've read them all) I think about a moral ethical hero, steeped in intelligence and goodness embroiled in evil machinations within British horse racing society - either directly or indirectly. The heroes aren't always horse jockies, they can be film producers, or involve heroes engaged in peripheral professions that somehow always touch the horse racing world.
But more than that, Francis's heroes are rational human beings. The choices made are rational choices directed by a firm objective philosophy that belies all of Francis's novels. The dialogue is clear and touched with humor no matter the intensity of evil that the hero faces. The hero's thoughts reveal a vulnerability that is touching, while his actions are always based on doing the right thing to achieve justice.
Causing the reader to deeply care about the characters in a novel is a difficult thing to do. No such worries in a Francis novel. The point of view is first person, you are the main character as you read the story (usually the character of Mr. Douglas). The hero is personable, like able, non-violent but delivering swift justice with his mind rather than through physical means. This is not to say that violence is a stranger to our hero. Some of it staggering and often delivered by what we would think of normal persons living in British society.
You will come to love the world of Steeple Chase racing, you will grow a fondness for horses, stables, trainers and the people who live in that world. You will read the books, devouring one after the other and trust me Dick Francis has a lot of novels (over 40 by my last count).
There are several series woven into the fabric of Francis's work: notably the Sid Halley and Kit Fielding series.
Assessment: Dick Francis is one of my favorite writers. I read his books with a fierce hunger that remains insatiable and I mourn his death. -
I have not read too many Dick Francis’ novels, but this one made a big impression on me since it involved the world of writing, literature, literary agents…John Kendall is a struggling writer – I have identified with this for years! – and his attempts to survive in this sphere sparked empathy from me. His (early) interactions with his agent piqued me – even if he would learn that his agent even before talking to him, had accepted a position on his behalf before deigning to brief him! Indeed there is a lot of human warmth, great intelligence, fecund interactions amongst people in Francis’ novel.
But always terrifying is the sinister, cruel proclivities of certain individuals (‘villains’) in his works. People one would not necessarily associate sheer, palpable evil with, often turning out to be incredibly malevolent. And so it turns out here too. Late in this work, we flinch with horror as our hero has an arrow embedded in him, with the concomitant excruciating pain that goes with this. Yet the tormentor is still bent on tormenting him further, by trying to pull the goddamn arrow out! Excuse me. Even now I shudder trying to imagine the throes of pain. The mystery in this work, as usual, is exceedingly brilliant, complicated yet simple in the end... Yes, Kendall is a struggling writer who has nevertheless managed to publish some "books". His encounter with an established, formidable, revered female writer late on in this work, for me, was worth the price of this book alone ! -
I read this book yesterday. I mean, I read the whole thing yesterday, if that gives you an idea of how much it grabs you. Francis was the master of that last sentence that makes you have to start the next chapter whether you want to or not.
-
Ouch. John a novice writer goes to a race trainer called Tremayne to write his biography. Tremayne’s young son Gareth and other son Perkins with his wife live in the house.
A good story with a murder, accidents and survival thanks to John’s books on how to survive in the wilderness. Frances has written a tale if suspicion, jealousy and lots and of potential suspects.
The ending is excellent. Bows and arrows indeed. -
Always a guilty pleasure. I just love Dick Francis.
-
"Longshot" by top-notch Dick Francis is an arrow that just misses the heart. Narrator John Kendal meticulously details directions for constructing such, bows, traps, diagram of arteries guarding life blood, in six glossy white hardcover survival guides "Return Safe from the Wilderness" (Jungle, Desert, Sea, Ice, or Safari). Generous large racehorse trainer Tremayne Vickers invites John to leave starving in an frigid garret for a month live-in biography commission.
Daughter-in-law Mackie skids their jeep into a deep water-filled ditch, where our hero saves her, the head lad Bob Watson, client Fiona Goodhaven, and respective spouses quiet Ingrid and happy Harry, from "ice-cubery" p47. We get drawn into the family circle with sons friendly Gareth 15 (pal appropriately nicknamed Coconut 14), and otherworldly woodworker Perkin. Fiona's cousin violent jockey Nolan, arrested for strangling a party girl there the previous April, publicly attacks and threatens John.
Interspersed are third-person accounts of Berkshire-lilting local Inspector Doone finding the bones of missing strangled sleeparound stable girl Angela Brickell. Her murderer keeps on trying, inspired by the guides. John needs a strong will to save his own skin.
I'd forgotten the title, but I've enjoyed this at least thrice now. I knew the perpetrator and fate at first meeting, but I wallow in expressions like still mornings "as rare as honest beggars" p 64, that bring eccentric character voices to life, my new friends. I still fear huge horses, even after moving to the country and learning to ride Western along with new neighbors. But I read everything I can find by Francis, edge of the seat suspense. Surprise endings twist our perception of justice.
At the end, John is the loner cowboy riding off in the sunset, but the people have been more finely delineated than in modern book series that drag on too long. I mourn the author, not alive to write more; his son has not yet achieved the same pinnacle of talent. -
I recently picked up 12 Dick Francis books I didn’t own on ebay. (There are still three out there. Soon they will be mine.) I swore I would read one a month to stretch my pleasure out over a year. I did not do that, instead I read six in the past two weeks. I was not shocked by my lack of will power. Longshot, 4.5, had everything I love in a DF mystery. A mild mannered protagonist who has some sort of super power. Author John Kendall has written 6 guidebooks on how to survive under various circumstances. If lost in the jungle, for instance. We all know John is going to need those skills, while spending time in a lovely country home in a lovely village with lovely people gathering details for a biography of country home owner, a lovely, well-esteemed horse trainer. John quickly becomes a much needed cog in the wheel of the family’s daily life. John is quietly competent. (I’m having so much fun!) The bones of a missing stable girl turn up and, there you go, mystery to solve. I also enjoyed the fact that there was no love interest. I am often discomforted by how DF handles romantic situations.
-
An enjoyable Francis staple – a worthy hero, plenty of horses and racing. Most of the Francis books tie the mystery plot to something Francis has obviously researched. I’ve read and learned about glass blowing, (ancient) computer viruses, and gold mining from some Francis plots, and I’ve come to expect these non-horse bits as much as the upstanding hero. And many books contain a couple of these side research plot points beyond the well known and expected horse racing touches. For “Longshot” I feel Francis may have been on a tight schedule. The unique skill described is survival, and you get the feeling he picked up a book at the shop on surviving in the British wilderness and wrote bits of that into this story. Quite a few bits. There’s always another one coming. The other “inner workings” parts of the story involved selling a book to a publisher and the workings of a horse training farm, neither of which I suspect required any additional research for this author. I felt a bit disappointed after being entertained in a more “exotic” manner in earlier books.
But that didn’t really hurt this story – it’s a good one. As I said at the beginning of this review, this is a typical Francis plot, and I enjoyed it. And since I bought 5 more at the library sale, all thick paper hardbacks, I will keep reading him.
This is the 20th Francis book I’ve read, and the first in paper (the previous ones either audio or ebooks). I believe I still prefer audio for these kinds of mysteries, since they tend to keep driving and I feel I would have completed this quicker and with as much retention and enjoyment as reading the paper novel. I can’t say the same for every author or genre of book. In my most-read author chart on Goodreads, Francis is coming strong in third behind Ross Macdonald and James Lee Burke, leaving Philip Roth and John LeCarre behind and Ian Fleming hoping to find more books to publish. The serious fiction plodders are behind and struggling to keep up. -
While the story itself and the horseracing and murder aspect was enjoyable, I actually found the survivalism aspect more fun (and educational) to read about. I enjoyed reading about the trips to the wood as the author was teaching his boss' son and his friend various survival techniques in the woods, and other survival trivia learned from the accident at the boathouse, for example. It was fun to read about what you would need and what kind of kit to carry with you. Overall a fun book.
-
Longshot is typical of Dick Francis' writing...fun, interesting, exciting, and breathtaking.
I really enjoyed the survival twist here and the murder mystery element had me hooked. Well worth a read for anybody who enjoys a good twist and a surprise reveal, while joining the protagonist in the journey of finding out who the villain is. -
Francis is so reliable a read. You know the ethical and loyal hero will triumph, there are plenty of red herrings and horses (of various colors) and action. Still, the writing is not flabby or plain. He writes with verve, good depictions of people and horses and places.
Never a disapppoinment. -
Another great protagonist by Francis. Thrilling, with a unique angle. 🐎
-
Not the absolute worst of Francis' books, but pretty darn close. It takes a very long half of the book for anything much to happen, and the first crime is poorly not-woven into the rest of the story. There is no way the first-person narrator and MC could be privy to what was said and done at police headquarters while he was miles away riding out at first lot! I figured out who the killer was in very short order, perhaps because the first half of the book has nothing to do with anything much. Oh, the hero this time around is a total Gary Stu who can do anything he sets his mind to, from surviving in the wild to cooking for a large family to becoming a jockey, while everyone around him spills their guts at the slightest provocation and the police turn to him for facts and answers as if he had them.
If that weren't enough, we are treated once again to Planet Francis' dictum that all real women see reproduction as the be-all and end-all of existence. We have not one but three women who are all about getting int' Pudding Club in one yarn! One can't, one didn't and one is all stars and unicorns because she manages it, like the good little uppah middle clahss gel she is. The only thing missing in this book is a labrador.
None of this was helped by David Case's dreadful, bored reading of the book. Half the time he forgets the voices and intonations he's assigned to different characters, so suddenly the MC speaks in the die-away gasp he started using for most of the women (and as a woman myself, I take umbrage) and when he tries to infuse a sense of urgency into his reading of Our Hero's dreadful brush with death, he only manages to whine.
I could have forgiven some of the book's shortcomings if Francis hadn't actually said in so many words in the text, "Someone should write a book about this and call it Long Shot." Which, by the way, is two words, not one. I remember reading this in the 1980s and remembering scraps of unimportant material, which is most of the book, anyway.
A shaky two stars, more like a star and a half given the dire audio book reader. Not a fun experience, by a very, very long shot. -
OK, I'm officially going through the equivalent of mind-numbing TV; enjoyable, quick and instantly forgettable plot-driven books. My mind lately has been like fizz and all I want is to read something easy and diverting so I'm raiding the children's library I run eg reading through a box set of Dick Francis that my mother also likes and gave me - I've probably read them already a few years ago, but as I said they're not memorable (and now the technology described is *really* out of date!). I'm also reading my husband's crime/mystery type books - you know, fun, fast paced, all action, describing the minutiae of the protagonist's life ie that they got up and had a shower and exactly what they ate for breakfast and that they turned the key in the ignition to start up their XXX car etc etc. So apologies if I'm dumbing down the literary level here but hey I'm still reading! (...just not the medical journals I'm supposed to be reading).
-
Dick Francis is my favorite writer...no one quite like him. Incredible details, character development and I love the way he uses sentence structure to set a scene and convey emotion. Dick Francis was a master at that. I've read his entire collection, and this is among my top-five favorites. I'm a newspaper writer, so it was fun to relate to the anguish of writing that is expressed in this novel. I've read the entire Dick Francis collection, and am now going back through the classics on my shelf — it's like reading them for the first time. My heart was racing and I couldn't flip the pages fast enough. Great stuff.
-
It's been a long time since I read a Dick Francis novel and I'd forgotten how much fun they are. Ridiculous, for sure, but full of horses and jockeys and betting and intrigue and, well, lots of fun. Francis doesn't take himself or his story too seriously and if the ending is implausible and leaves gaping holes open all over the place, I didn't mind because I'd enjoyed the journey so much.
A great holiday read. -
Dick Francis only writes horse racing-related noir, as far as I can tell. I think my parents must have been reading him for a while, because this rather unmemorable example ended up in my hands when I was a teen.
-
This is a very Goodread. Another excellent Dick Francis book! Intensively researched, Longshot is about survival. Not just survival in a wilderness but survival in, and of, the self.
-
This marks the halfway point of my reading/rereading of all of Francis’ books. This one was particularly good.
-
A blast from the past. I found this on the bookshelf when looking for another book. As a teen-ager I read loads of Dick Francis novels. I enjoyed revisiting this but it was a bit formulaic and predictable.
-
My favorite genre, after I graduated from children's books to those for adults, used to be mystery/thriller. I loved Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason series, and books by Alistair Maclean and Desmond Bagley. However, in last few years, I have been having trouble finding the kind of thrillers I like; most of contemporary works being psychological thrillers, frequently with gruesome details, psychopaths, and child abuse. That's when someone recommended me Dick Francis (though I no longer remember who or when), and I added Longshot and Danger to my reading list.
Over the Diwali weekend, I wanted to relax with something engaging but unstressful, so I picked up Longshot for a quick read. It turned out to be fairly entertaining but unremarkable book. The protagonist, John Kendall, a budding author of fiction, is an expert on surviving in extreme conditions. Brief descriptions of these skills are sprinkled throughout the book; they are interesting, and also come in handy in the course of the events in the novel. He accepts a commission from well known horse trainer Tremayne, and comes to stay at his family home. Over time, he comes to realize the warm and compassionate nature of his employer, beneath the autocratic and sometimes unreasonable exterior. It makes for nice reading, though it is a well used trope. Kendall's interaction with Tremayne's teenage son Gareth was the best part of the book, as Gareth comes to look up to him as a mentor/elder brother.
Since the employer and the second main character Tremayne is a trainer of racing horses, there is a lot of detail about horse racing in the book (and is a consistent theme in his works, as I come to know from other reviews). Initially I read about those, but after a while I lost interest and skipped the details that didn't have a bearing on the plot.
In these kind of novels, the protagonist usually has some extraordinary skills, which gradually emerge to save others from peril. I think this one went a bit too far on this aspect - Kendall's survival skills, and keen observation and reasoning were alright (and expected), but his learning to ride racehorses well enough to become an amateur jockey in less than two weeks was rather far fetched.
Coming to the question of the genre, which is the main point, I wouldn't call it a thriller. It is a murder mystery alright, but I don't think it is a great one. The murder comes into picture after quite a bit. The identity of the murderer involved an obvious red herring, and another usual device - it turns out to be a very unlikely character. In the good ones, the path to discovery is where the tension lies, but I didn't find it to be one of those biting-your-nails kind of journey.
My rating: 2.5 stars, rounded to 3. -
I'm a real fan of Dick Francis.
-
Romanzo di genere "giallo", che può vantare alcune caratteristiche positive. Ad esempio, i delitti avvengono coinvolgendo una cerchia di persone piuttosto ristretta, persone che, man mano che il libro precede, si imparano a conoscere abbastanza bene; diciamo che, in questo senso, "l'impianto" generale assomiglia al tipo di ambientazioni create dalla Christie: poche persone, che hanno risentimenti verso qualcuno oppure motivi validi per difendere "a spada tratta" qualcun altro. Personalmente, è l'organizzazione che preferisco nei "polizieschi". Detesto quando saltano fuori personaggi "nuovi" ogni tre per due oppure quando si scopre che l'assassino è uno che non si era mai sentito nominare prima.
I personaggi, sia pur con tutti i limiti del caso, sono abbastanza definiti, hanno una loro particolare psicologia e non sono solo marionette gettate in scena per creare superflui colpi di scena o per riuscire a tirare sino alla fine.
Infine, il mondo che fa sfondo alla vicenda, cioè quello delle corse dei cavalli, sembra ben decritto e ricostruito. Non per nulla, l’autore stesso è stato un fantino piuttosto affermato negli anni tra il 1953 ed il 1954, il che lo fa evidentemente parlare con cognizione di causa. Per contro, vi sono un paio di particolare non del tutto convincenti nel finale, particolari che ovviamente ometto di citare per non svelare nulla a chi dovesse eventualmente leggere il romanzo. E, aggiungerei anche che il lettore tende a sospettare sin da subito dell’assassino o, almeno, per me è andata così.
Comunque, in linea generale, il mio giudizio è sostanzialmente positivo. -
It's fair to say that Dick Francis is the most reliable author of horse-related mysteries in the English Language. WHile that may be a fairly narrow niche, it's also a niche that allows Francis to expand his knowledge base into areas readers would never expect.
In Longshot, Francis offers us a main character who is not only a writer, but a survival expert, ala "Survivorman" Les Stroud. This character is hired to write a biography for a famous racehorse trainer. What ensues is the result of a previously-vanished amateur jockey, several characters with poorly balanced mental status, and WAAAAAYYYY too much money being thrown around by people with too few scruples.
As usual, the first-person narrator is a multi-talented man of few words who is not only disciplined, but much tougher on the inside than he is on the outside.
Overall, this narrative hangs together a bit better than some of the other DF titles. The standard plot devices (a male, single narrator who is physically fit, a hideous injury, the nick-of-time rescue) don't feel so standard, as they are all twists on the usual fare. The backup characters are more rounded, and the descriptive elements don't feel tacked on. When you reach the climax of the story, Francis plays with your expectations, making the bad guy's consequences something you'd never expect. -
One of Dick Francis' better books. Not a lot of action, and because of the nature of the villains' tactics, what action there is tends to play out more as man vs. circumstances more than man vs. man. Still, John Kendall is one of my favorite Francis characters (unassuming and capable, as Francis leads tend to be), and I enjoy the slow build of tension over the course of the book.
Like Koontz and others, Francis often falls into the cliche of the insanely evil villain--atrocious acts committed by individuals who are clearly deranged. I tend to see this as a pretty lazy choice and prefer everyday villains. We all of us have the capacity for evil, and the more sympathetic and complex villains remind us of that. The maniacal villain seldom makes for a compelling story, and Francis is at his best when he resists the impulse to sidestep a more legitimate motive in favor of "because he/she is crazy."
That being said (and I hope this does not constitute a spoiler), this book avoids the cliched pyscho killer pitfall. Which is probably a large part of why it ranks among my favorite Dick Francis novels. -
28-Jul-98
Longshot - Dick Francis It's funny that I've read this at least twice before and never wrote anything about it. I can't love the mystery because there's a whole lot of slut-shaming and blaming the victim(s). But, the stuff about the great trainer wanting his story told, and the writer who's sold his first novel and is trying to write his second and live on his tiny advance...that has the feeling of real truth. And despite the heinous indifference of the community to the death of a young sexually-active woman, the Ladies (titled or not there are clearly some women who are better than others, at least in part because they are safely married) are all treated with respect and admiration.
Yeah, despite the bad, I still love the book, because who doesn't want to be offered the chance to ride a good horse and then be asked to turn jockey? Even at my age I still like to daydream about previously undiscovered talents being discovered. Probably very few people actually could stand modeling as a career, say, but who wouldn't love to be asked?
Personal copy -
The most important draw for me as a reader when reading a mystery is a compelling narrative voice and Dick Francis does not disappoint. I admit as a writer I felt especially drawn to the character of John Kendall. Kendall is the successful author of a series of how-to guides about wilderness survival. Despite his glamorous occupation, he's completely skint at the beginning of book, having frittered away almost his entire advance. He doesn't have enough money to put coins in the heater of his cheap rented flat. So he's desperate enough to accept a position ghost-writing the memoir of a successful horse racing trainer. Of course, he stumbles into a mystery--one of the stable hands, a beautiful young girl is found murdered.
The book is well-plotted and delightfully funny. One of my favorite sequences involves Kendall attempting to teach a group of teenage boys how to forage for food in the wilderness although they'd really just rather be eating pizza indoors.
My only quibble is that the other characters could have been a bit more differentiated and there wasn't quite as much horse-related action as I'd hoped for but still a fun and expertly-written read.
