One thing about enjoying an occasional re-read of Dick Francis books is that when one’s personal stash is in boxes, the library is bound to have plenty of others. I picked up Forfeit because I don’t own a copy and it had been a long time since I read it. Not a bad choice, as it turns out, because although it isn’t one of Mr. Francis’s best, it is reasonably good, and has a lot of Early Dick Francis stuff that is interesting from thirty-five years on.
The hero is clearly a Dick Francis hero; he gets beaten and bruised and drunk and keeps going. Considering how many people think of horseracing, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that the Dick Francis hero is almost never swift, but rather wins through sheer endurance. Of course, steeplechases are insanely long when compared to flat races. I doubt there’s anything really there, but it occurred to me as a metaphor. Anyway, one thing I found totally bizarre about this 1969 book is that it ends with the hero and his paraplegic wife agreeing to a sort of open marriage. Well, with the wife agreeing that it’s OK for the hero to take a mistress, and the hero taking a mistress. I suppose in 1969 it seemed possible for that to be a happily-ever-after ending, but I notice that sort of thing doesn’t keep happening in the later books.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.