Bonecrack by Dick Francis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My wife likes what she refers to as “factory movies.” We used to see those in school as kids. The term as she means it is a general one that applies to any movie or TV show that explains how things are made, or even more generally, takes an inside look at a field of endeavor. That’s the main appeal of this book for me. All the inside scoop on thoroughbred horse training and racing was fun to learn. The writing was well done, but the plot really was all too predictable to be ranked high as a mystery or thriller. In fact, there was no mystery at all. Neil, the main character, is beaten by a very bad man who threatens even more harm if his son is not allowed be the lead jockey on the best horse in England. The son is an arrogant little snot … at first. Then he and we readers are educated on the proper way to train horses and learn the jockeying ropes from the ground up. You can pretty much guess the rest. The ending was rather neat and lazy, but inevitable. I enjoyed the book, but now that I’ve seen the factory movie, I don’t have any desire to read another Dick Francis book.