Comeback is the diplomat-vet one. You know.
It seems that YHB hasn’t reread Comeback for five years? That seems unlikely. But for a while, I was rereading my Dick Francis books infrequently. I’m not sure why. And I am surprised that I hadn’t reread this one, as it is a favorite. Not my very favorite, which would probably be the Canadian train one, or perhaps the wealthy-commodity-trading father one, or the movie one. Although I’m also fond of the painter one, not the Australian painter one but the bagpipe-playing painter one. And the kidnapping one, that’s pretty good, too.
I think of myself as rereading each of those every year or so, but clearly I don’t. I know I don’t reread each Dick Francis novel every year, which mean reading more than two a month—doable, but that would eat up pretty much all the light rereading time available. And I would get heartily sick of him after about five or six. But I do read something like four a year, it seems, which is rather a lot, really. And if I read four a year, and Comeback is one of my top five, why have I read a bunch of other ones I don’t like as much, and some twice, before getting to this one again?
Clearly there is something wrong with my book-choosing algorithm. Not the bit where I seek out books that are new to me, although that is scarcely perfect, but the bit where I am looking for something fun and comfortable, easy to carry and familiar enough that I won’t mind stopping partway through a chapter—the bit, in fact, where I am standing in front of one of the shelves in my bedroom saying to my Best Reader why don’t we have any books?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
I think the kidnapping one was the first one I read. No, second. The broke pilot one was the first one I read (uh, not the titled but broke pilot one, the air-taxi broke pilot one). Love this style—so nicely exemplifies that they are all the same, just with different contexts. Dick Francis is my comfort reading, though, so I also go back annually. I rarely bother to play favorites, though, I generally look for ones where I remember as few details as possible.
Oh, the recent crooked online poker one was TERRIBLE. Stay stuck in the 1970s/80s, Mr Francis. No need to modernize.