Dead Weight - Hardcover

Ex-National Hunt Champion Jockey John Francome is a broadcaster on racing for Channel 4 and the author of many bestselling racing thrillers. He lives in Berkshire.

This is the twelfth racing thriller from former British hurdle and steeplechase rider Francome, and it may be his best. In it, Francome has mastered the technique of weaving several stories together in an ever-tightening web, gradually building suspense for an inevitable but nonetheless harrowing showdown between the character we care about the most and the one we fear. The former is last season's champion jockey, Phil Nicholas, who is struggling to regain his form while trying to cope with the psychological effects from his first really serious spill. The latter is Keith Jeffries, a hulking psychopath who comes to believe that devious insiders are responsible for his lost bets and sets about to punish the cheats in progressively more gruesome ways. It's only a matter of time before Nicholas draws the monster's ire, and if the jockey is to survive, he will have to find reserves of resourcefulness and courage far beyond what is required on any racecourse. Francome will have readers turning the pages at breakneck speed. Dennis Dodge
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