Whip Hand

By the end of the week Sid Halley didn’t have just one job, but three. When the latest of three prize-winning horses, all with promising futures, inexplicably putters out at the track, a trainer’s wife suspects foul play and asks Sid to watch their latest great acquisition—Tri-Nitro—to ensure he doesn’t come to the same end. Then Sid’s ex-wife Jenny, still full of bitterness, is accused of fraud after she is innocently duped by a con artist into parting with thousands in a charity scam. And even more, top brass of the Security Service solicits Sid to find out if one of his investigators is receiving hush money.Like all of Francis’ characters, Sid’s sleuthing brings him back to the track and the stable, and he feels the familiar regret and nostalgia for the racing life that must always elude him. At the height of his career, Sid’s arm was shattered under the crushing weight of his falling horse. Now a mechanical arm reminds him of lost hopes and the terrible price the passion to win extracts from a racer’s life.