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Driving Force
by Dick Francis
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Putnam (1992-10-01)
ISBN: 0399137769
EAN: 9780399137761
Dewey Decimal #: 823.914
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 318 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 01FB-083-7-0209
Condition: VG+
Comments: FIRST EDITION - 1st Trade Edition, full number line; Clean copy, no markings by previous owners; Dust jacket shows very slight shelfwear; Very little age-toning; Corners and ends of spine very lightly bumped; Pages bright and tight. *International Buyers Welcome!* (except for prohibitively heavy items, as noted) - Satisfied customers in over 40 countries! We ship quickly and guarantee satisfaction. Your purchase helps support a U. Chicago student
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
When a hitchhiker picked up by one of his drivers is later found murdered, ex-jockey Freddie Croft, the owner of a profitable fleet of horse vans, is drawn into the mystery. By the author of Comeback. 275,000 first printing. $175,000 ad/promo.
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Customer Reviews
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Horse Racing
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-02-11
When you read a Dick Francis novel you know that you are not only getting a great read but you are also getting a book written by a writer who knows his subject. Dick Francis was one of the world's greatest jockeys. Talk about horses and racing - he knew his subject. He was also Queen Elizabeth's and her mother's rider for many years. A great athlete!
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Funny business
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-01-15
Dick Francis finds dozens of ways to use the backdrop of racing for his novels, showing a truly astounding imagination. In this book, the hero owns and runs a business for transporting racehorses between trainers and racetracks.
Freddie Croft is no mere businessman, but an ex-jockey who still remembers with nostalgia the thrill of merging mind and body with a nonhuman powerhouse. Winner of many a race in the past, he's a strategist and psychologist at heart. So when strange things start happening, Freddie is determined to find out what's really going on.
It all starts with two of his drivers, who are forbidden to pick up hitchhikers, breaking the rule and ending up with a dead man in the van. While that death looks like a heart attack, the next death is more suspicious. And then Freddie himself, while inspecting his vans late at night, is attacked and almost killed.
Freddie's mechanic has discovered hidden compartments bolted under several of his vans. Identifying the mysterious cargo is Freddie's challenge, since at the moment the compartments are empty. He doesn't trust the police, who seem to treat Freddie himself as a suspicious person. But he does enlist the help of the Jockey Club's security organization. The investigator they send turns out to be a sexy (and very capable) woman, a plus for love-starved Freddie.
Without being exactly a page-turner, the novel keeps the reader involved by means of the appealing characters and realistic setting. You get a strong sense of what Freddie Croft's life is like day to day, running this somewhat prosaic yet exhausting and complicated business.
Originally published in 1992, Driving Force is now back in print, happily for Dick Francis fans.
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What's your driving force?
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-07-07
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I've yet to read a Dick Francis book I didn't enjoy. His leading men all tend to be kind of the same guy, but it's a character that works. Freddie Croft is tough, but not too tough... smart, but not too smart.. and somewhat of a reluctant ladie's man. I always find myself picturing Francis's leading men as the Daniel Craig version of James Bond.
But enough about Freddie! The story here is pretty solid and interesting, even to someone who doesn't know patooie about horse-racing. Everything is from Freddie's point of view... there are no sneak peeks into the mind of the bad guys or what's happening while Freddie is elsewhere. I found that quite refreshing. I think too many suspense novels fall into that multiple point-of-view trap and it takes something away from the story. I found myself trusting the people Freddie trusted and feeling ambivalent about those he wasn't sure of, and I think it added that extra zing of emotion to the big reveal at the finish. I highly recommend Dick Francis if you're looking for something a little different from today's usual mystery/suspense story.
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Deadly Hitchhiker
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-01-12
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Freddie Croft, is an ex-jockey who owns and operates a horse transportation service. When an employee fails to follow the rules and picks up a hitchhiker Freddie fires him. But it is the hitchhiker who dies in the truck and Freddie is left holding a loaded gun he doesn't know exists.
Dick Francis can take you into the world of English racing as no other writer can, introduce new and deadly means of evil and lead you to cover each page looking for clues, which are buried as you follow his hero over many courses to an exciting finish with surprising results.
Pick up any Frances, you're in for a good read.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHERS and QUALIFYING LAPS.
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Hunger for winners
Rating (4)
Date: 2006-10-29
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Horse boxes in the UK are horse trailers here. The main character, Freddie Croft, is in the business of transporting horses. He discharges a driver who picked up a hitch-hiker against his express direction, the hitch-hiker having come to his notice because he ended up dead.
Freddie had been a steeple chase jockey. There was less to be nervous about in the horse transport business than the business of being a jockey and looking for mounts. His customers tended to be a case of repeat business, he had to be less concerned with rivals than he had been formerly.
A faux employee, sent by the jockey club investigator, is embedded in Freddie's operation as a replacement driver and an assistant investigator. Stamina and adaptability are essential to the job. Freddie is called away from a social event when one of his men, Jogger, is discovered dead.
Next a Lebanese-Canadian driver is hired, whom his sister discovers subsequently to be over-qualified for such a position. He seeks his sister's aid to analyze a substance he discovers in the horse box in which the first dead man had been riding.
Freddie is unconscious and in the water in the vicinity of Southampton. He doesn't know how he came to be there. Following his rescue he discovers his vehicles and his house have been ransacked, vandalized. His business has a computer virus. It seems that the hitch-hiker had been some sort of a courier, carrying a medium for a virus of the biological sort.
The first dead man, Ogden, had been unemployed for four years. He was used and had let himself be used in his desperation. The solution to the mystery is that one of the customers wanted to win at all cost. Old Jogger, the second dead man, had figured it all out, but he gave hints to many people of his discoveries. There were at least three actors involved in the various misdeeds and Jogger had clashed with some of them.
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