Even Money by Dick Francis, Felix Francis

From Barnes & Noble

It's the first day of the grand Royal Ascot race, but Ned Talbot is hardly in a festive mood. This aging legal bookmaker has a lot of things on his mind: most painfully, his dwindling finances. With his earnings already depleted by big gambling conglomerates, he now faces the likelihood of another bettors' favorite winning and sucking up the loot. All Ned's woes slip to oblivion, however, when a man walks out of nowhere and identifies himself as his father, who supposedly died when Ned was an infant. In a moment, though, that changes too, as the man is knifed by an unknown assailant and can only mutter a few cryptic words before he lapses into unconsciousness. Suddenly, everything is at stake, racing quickly toward an unpredictable end.

From the Publisher

The New York Times-bestselling authors return with a heart-stopping new novel.

O n the first day of Royal Ascot, the world's most famous horse race, the crowd rejoices in a string of winning favorites. Ned Talbot has worked all his life as a bookmaker- taking over the family business from his grandfather- so he knows not to expect any sympathy from the punters as they count their winnings, and he his losses. He's seen the ups and downs before-but, as the big gambling conglomerates muscle in on small concerns like his, Ned wonders if it's worth it any more.

When a gray-haired man steps forward from the crowd claiming to be his father, Ned's life is thrown into far deeper turmoil. He'd been told since he was a baby that his parents had died in a car crash.

Barely an hour later, his newly found father is stabbed by an unknown assailant in the Ascot parking lot. Blood oozing from his abdomen, his father warns Ned to "be very careful." But of whom? Of what? Ned finds himself in a race to solve his father's riddle-a race where coming in second could cost him more than even money-it could cost him his life. . . .

Publishers Weekly

The third collaboration between bestseller Francis and son Felix (after Silks), a taut crime thriller, features an especially sympathetic hero. Bookmaker Ed Talbot is struggling with his wife's mental illness, even as technology threatens to give the big bookmaking outfits an insurmountable advantage over his small family business. Soon after a man shows up at Ascot and identifies himself as Ed's father, Peter, whom Ed believed long dead, a thug demanding money stabs Peter to death. Ed is in for even more shocks when he learns his father was the prime suspect in his mother's murder—and that Peter's killing, rather than a random act of violence, may be linked to a mysterious electronic device used in some horse-racing fraud. Ed must juggle his amateur investigations into past and present crimes with his demanding family responsibilities. Though some readers may find the ending overly pat, the authors make bookmaking intelligible while easily integrating it into the plot. (Aug.)

People Magazine

With wit and an expert's understanding of both horses and homicide, the Francises will keep you riveted!

Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review

Ever since he started writing with his son Felix, Dick Francis seems to have found fresh inspiration at the racetrack.

Kirkus Reviews

The father-and-son Francis team (Silks, 2008, etc.) turn their attention to the most reviled members of the horse-racing fraternity: on-site bookmakers. "My clients were never my friends," wryly observes Ned Talbot. Of course they aren't, since in the zero-sum game of bookmaking, Ned's earnings depend on their losses. Now someone is changing the rules of that game. Luca Mandini, Ned's assistant, reports that Internet and mobile-phone connections have gone down all over Ascot during crucial minutes when bookmakers have tried to lay off bets against favorites in order to reduce the money they'll have to pay out. More urgently, a stranger who identifies himself as Ned's father-a man his grandparents told him was killed in a car crash 36 years ago-is killed for good, stabbed to death in front of Ned's eyes an hour after they meet. Peter Talbot leaves his newfound son a disturbing legacy. A rucksack Ned recovers from his father's hotel room is hotly pursued by several unsavory and violent characters. Peter's return from Australia reopens painful questions about the death of his wife-questions whose answers are locked in the Alzheimer's-stricken brain of Ned's aged Nanna. Ned worries that telling his wife Sophia about these latest developments may produce a crisis in her bipolar disorder and condemn her to endless incarceration in the hospital. Meanwhile, a major bookmaker backed by a pair of bullyboys is bent on driving Ned out of business. A blissfully satisfying blend of suspense, revenge and horse-racing info in a multilayered mystery that's presumably Felix Francis's distinctive contribution to his father's legendary series.

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