High Stakes

Review of High Stakes written by Elizabeth Hawley High Stakes by Dick Francis.....written in 1975...Francis introduces us to Steven Scott. Scott is a wealthy inventor of toys and has taken on the fairly new hobby of racing horses. The story begins with Scott firing the trainer of his horses. Scott has found out the trainer has been cheating him out of quite a sum of money. The trainer threatens to sue Scott for slander if Scott tells anyone why he fired the trainer. Scott, our hero, is viewed as the bad guy by the horse racing crowd for firing a trainer who had provided him with horses that won races. From there, the plot, as they say, thickens. The trainer refuses to give up the horse Energize. At first, Scott thinks the trainer is just being stubborn but quickly uncovers even more sinister cover-up activities. Scott comes up with a very clever plan to outwit the trainer and get his horse back. Scott and his allies proceed to carry out the plan with enthusiasm, creativity, and a few laughs. Francis is a master at laying out a story succinctly, making the characters real people, and the plot believable without wasting words. I don’t want to give away the ending, but Francis suckered me along and when I read it, I laughed out loud. Hawleyliz and UnaLibreta agreed with me in our choice for a favorite quote. (Don't read on if you haven't read the book yet!) It's the very last line: What a way to end the book! He's alone in his flat thinking about what has happened: -->

Energise finished second, by a short head. It's no good expecting fairy-tale endings, in racing.

Proof , I thought, was impossible. The murmurs of wrong information could never be traced, and the crowd of bankrupt little men probably thought of Ganser Mays as their savior, not the architect of the skids.

Chosen by members of the reading group in the late 1990s. From High Stakes by Dick Francis.