Forfeit

James Tyrone was a newspaperman working for the Sunday Blaze, a job he liked. But he always needed extra money to care for his wife, Elizabeth, who was an invalid, ninety per cent paralyzed by polio and unable to breathe without the help of an electrically driven apparatus.

So when a magazine, Tally, asked Ty to do a study in depth—background stuff on the famous Lamplighter race—and offered a decent fee, Ty said he'd do the story. There the trouble started. First of all, another sports writer, Bert Checkov, gave Ty an odd warning, and then, apparently drunk, fell out of an open window to his death. Had he really fallen? Some strange rumors seemed to be circulating about a horse named Tiddely Pom and other horses—favorites that were withdrawn just before starting time, upsetting the odds, enriching the bookmakers. A man with a Rolls-Royce and a homburg hat seemed to be involved. And then Ty found himself in love with a beautiful dusky girl.

Threats, and more than threats, a fascinating racing scandal on and off the tracks, crisis on crisis, all of it very real, knowledgeable and happening to people one cares about. This is quite a novel.

And Dick Francis is quite an author. He was also a champion jockey who has led an exciting life. His autobiography, The Sport of Queens, has just been published by Harper & Row.