24 Festive Tasks: Door 3 – Melbourne Cup Day, Book
I’ve owned this collection of short stories since forever and decided our Melbourne Cup Day book task was the perfect occasion to pull it out and finally read it. Candidly, I’m not sure why Dick Francis didn’t write more short stories: both his style of writing and his plot construction lent themselves perfectly to the short form, and I tend to view even some of his novels as short story constructs extended to novel length rather than books conceived as novels in the first place (even though they probably were). Be that as it may, this is a very enjoyable collection featuring some of Francis’s best writing, set in the world of racehorse breeding (and stealing and betting), and against the great race events of Britain and the U.S., from the Grand National, Ascot, Sandown Park, the Marlborough Racing Club Gallops, Cheltenham and Stratford to the Kentucky Derby, plus the odd imaginary racetrack (unfortunately, not also the Melbourne Cup). Not all of the mysteries involve a death, and not all the deaths that occur are caused intentionally — word to the wise, however, steeplechase racing is a hazardous sport for humans and horses alike, and Francis makes no bones about this particular fact.
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Reading Progess Update: 80 out 289 Pages
Reading this for the 24 Festive Tasks Melbourne Cup Day square: A set of 13 short stories set in the world of horse racing. One of them (Blind Chance) I recently read, under a different title (Twenty-one Good Men and True), as part of the Verdict of Thirteen anthology for the Halloween Bingo “13” square and won’t be rereading it. The others are new to me, though, and so far very enjoyable.
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