LONDON (AP) -Dick Francis, the former jockey who rode Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National when the horse fell near the finish line when well ahead of the field, died Sunday. He was 89.
Writing career
Dick Francis wrote more than 40 international bestsellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) which led to him becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, remaining in the job for 16 years. In 1962 he published his first thriller Dead Cert set in the world of racing. Subsequently he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his heroes held a variety of jobs from artist ( In the Frame and To the Hilt) to private investigator (Odds Against).
Francis is the only three-time recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel, winning for Forfeit in 1970, Whip Hand in 1981, and Come To Grief in 1996. Britain's Crime Writers Association awarded him its Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award in 1989. In 1996 he was given the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the highest honour bestowed by the MWA. He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. In 2003 he was honoured by being awarded the Gumshoe Awards' Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award.
Many of Francis' books are featured in volumes of Readers Digest Condensed Books.
Graham Lord's 1999 unauthorized biography Dick Francis: A Racing Life suggested his books had in fact been written by Francis' wife Mary. By all accounts Mary did much of the research and editing of Francis' later novels and stories and often worked collaboratively with her husband on each book's actual composition. After Mary's death in the year 2000 Francis wrote no new works until Under Orders (a racing term for when the horses are at the start and subject to the starter's orders) released on 26 September 2006. His next two books – Dead Heat in 2007 and Silks in 2008 – were co-written by his son Felix.
Dick Francis' manager (and co-author of his later books) was his son Felix Francis who left his post as teacher of A-Level Physics at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire in order to work for his father and who was the inspiration behind a leading character in the novel Twice Shy. His other son Merrick, formerly a racehorse trainer, later ran his own horse transport business, which inspired the novel Driving Force.