The Danger by Dick Francis: book review

The Danger (1983) is crime fiction written in three parts: 1) Italy, 2) England, and 3) Washington DC. Prolific and popular British author Dick Francis (1920-2010) was a retired steeplechase jockey and wrote about the industry he knew best: horse racing.

The narrator is Andrew Douglas, crime advisor who had previously assisted the police in 15 kidnappings. His job is to find the kidnapper of 23-year-old jockey Alessia Cenci, the rising female star in the Italian racing world. The police find her drugged but unharmed.

Soon after, three-year-old Dominic Nerity, son of a British derby racing winner, is kidnapped from a beach, and found safe. Next to be kidnapped is Morgan Freemantle, the senior steward of the Jockey Club, on his way to a press meeting in Baltimore, America.

This international kidnapping crime is a challenge for Andrew Douglas. The only clues are that the kidnapper is male, Italian, and his victims were not afraid of him – not even little Dominic.

Is Alessia’s 56-year-old father Paolo Cenci involved, or her sister Ilaria, or Dominic’s parents Miranda and John Nerity, or even Popsy the British female racehorse trainer?

And then Andrew Douglas is kidnapped.

This is one of Dick Francis’s best, written in his typical gentle, suspenseful style, that lopes along until the last gallop to the finish line.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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