To the Hilt

 

by Dick Francis (read by Simon Prebble) c. 1996

annual re-read

 

 

 

 

''Before that sudden journey no one is wiser in thought than he needs to be, in considering, before his departure, what will be adjudged to his soul, of good or evil, after his death-day.'' 

Bede's "Death Song"

With Dick Francis, when it comes to choosing a favorite my answer is always, "The one I am currently reading." I cannot make up my mind. I can't even rank them. Maybe it is because each one is different  and not a forty-plus book arc of one character.

To the Hilt is one of the last books that Francis wrote with his wife Mary. Like many of his previous stories, it weaves together multiple storylines -- and does so very very deftly.  Alexander Kinloch, a well-known and well-paid artist, lives and works by choice alone in a bothy in the highlands of Scotland. When his stepfather suffers a heart attack, Al/Alexander returns home to help his mother and finds himself up to his eyeballs in his step-father's business troubles (embezzlement leading to bankruptcy) and dead in the sights of his raging step-sister, who fears that Al is after her father's business for himself -- and that he always has been.  Of course, like a typical hero, Al finds the money, saves the business and straightens out the step-sister, but not with a dead body or two and some bumps and bruises just to make it interesting.

This is four star Francis.