When I heard that Dick Francis had written another book at last, I must admit I was skeptical. Even aside from the rumors that the last several books had, in fact, been written by his wife (now, sadly, deceased and unable to assist), I hadn’t enjoyed the most recent books very much at all. Not that it had been all downhill for years. There are quite a few books of late-ish vintage that I quite enjoy—the film director one, and the bagpiper one. And the van hire one wasn’t so bad, either, if it comes to that. But the glass-blower one stank, and the one before that, which I can’t even remember, was pretty weak as well. The point is, though, that I approached Under Orders with a certain wariness.
Then, after about, oh, three pages, I remarked to my Best Reader that reading it was like sinking into a nice warm bath. Comforting. Familiar. Like coming home after a long trip, and even if I’m coming home to discover that I’d left dishes in the sink and now had to face that along with all the laundry from the suitcases, it’s still home. Aaah.
In face, Under Orders is a second-rate Dick Francis. The villains are unmemorable, and a Dick Francis can’t be first-rate without a good villain. There are other problems, too. There was a lot of stuff that could well have been edited down, and really, you could have cut the book by about a third, which would have left room either for fleshing out the bad guys or slipping in a good subplot. I suspect, though, that when the editors got their hands on a New! Dick! Francis! ms, they probably looked at each other and said, “If we ask him to cut a third of this and come up with a new subplot, he’ll just retire again.” And really, if it’s a choice between having the man give up and decide it’s not worth it or publishing a second-rate Dick Francis, I for one am glad they went to the bank.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.