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In England to interview a successful racehorse trainer, writer of travel guides and survival expert John Kendall begins digging for the truth and encounters danger. By the author of Straight. (Mystery). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Audio CD
Publisher: Media Books Audio Publishing (June 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1578156149
ISBN-13: 978-1578156146
Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #4,876,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #41 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( F ) > Francis, Dick #9961 in Books > Books on CD > General #139709 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary
This 1990 novel by former jockey Dick Francis features John Kendall, a young man who has written a novel while working as an adventure guide writer. When his novel was accepted by a publisher Kendall took his advance, quit his job and began his second novel. As the story opens he has discovered two things, the first is that writing full time was not as easy as he had thought, and secondly that his advance was not lasting nearly as long as he had hoped. An opportunity to ghost write a horse trainer's memoirs came up, complete with room and board just as Kendall found himself homeless.While living in the trainer's home Kendall is introduced to the world of racing and some of its intrigues and scandals. As always in a Francis' novel, the hero is stoic and persisent, the family is dysfunctional, the first crime leads to a second, and in the end it is the villian's lack of character that caused all the misfortune.Francis' work has been criticized as being formulistic, that any one is very like any other. This is true but since they are well written, the characters are interesting, the plots are clever, and the action exciting this means only that the reader is guaranteed an enjoyable read with each new one.
I enjoyed this book enormously when I first read it and bought the audio version just for fun. Kenneth Branaugh really made this book a treat to listen to - fantastic voices and range without over doing it. Dick Francis fans - anyone really - will be thoroughly entertained with Longshot.
I freely admit to liking Dick Francis' writing style very much. I've enjoyed his books for years, and Longshot is no exception to this. It's a well put together story with good character development. In fact, you hear about people really caring about the author's characters; well, I cared about the characters in Longshot. It even had the "coming home" experience for the main character that provided extra interest for the main character. At the end, I found myself wishing the story could continue - even, perhaps, in a sequel for the main character. I wanted to see how some of the book's story lines played out. Their playing out wasn't essential to the novel, just something you found yourself wanting so the story could continue. All-in-all, a really good read and one I won't soon forget.
I really loved this book. Horse racing is so out of my normal arena but Francis gave me a great intro and laced it laced in a top drawer murder mystery. Had to work to keep from rushing through it too fast to catch all the lovely descriptions of early morning riding in the hills and snowy English countryside. Beautiful stuff. I immediately bought two more to try.
This was a great light read. I would definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading or listening to more of this authors books. I had never read any of his many books before but since introduced to this through a book club will look for more.
I love Dick Francis and this mystery I found particularly enjoyable the first time...it is one I reread from time to time and ordered for my IPad/Kindle...the story is unique enough with a travel writer doing biography of racing trainer who needs his survival skills in more ways than one...the sub characters are developed enough so that motivations and behavior become reasonable and the murder suspect is logical with clues available in the plot vs just the ending...Many of Francis's mysteries recycle some character aspects--so the writer has some of the same attributes of the balloonist, the pilot, the photographer, even the toy maker--yet is unique to himself...
Longshot has been one of my favorite Dick Francis books for many years. I have read it several times, and have recently bought a copy for my Kindle so that I can read it again.The protagonist is a young writer who is trying to get published as a novelist and has written several "travel" books dealing with survival in various extreme locations and conditions. The setting is the estate of a race horse trainer who wants this writer to write his biography. Of course there is a murder. Of course our hero helps resolve the murder.
"Longshot" centres on events in an old racing family, observed through the eyes of a writer of survival handbooks who has been invited to work on the biography of the patriarch, a successful trainer of racing horses. For the first time in a a few of its ilk, this novel left me wanting to hear more about how the characters went on to live their lives, partly because the resolution left some interesting tensions to work with. Due to the nature of the plot, Francis's characterisations go into more depth than he normally offers, and I wish he'd added another volume.
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