Your Humble Blogger's Best Reader had been looking for a bathtub book, a couple of weeks ago, and wound up with 10 Lb. Penalty, which we both remembered as one of the weaker Dick Francis novels, but good enough for a soak. She emerged clean and engrossed, and recommended it for rereading.
So. a couple of nights ago I was looking for a bathtub book, and remembered my Best Reader's recommendation, so I grabbed it and soaked. And it turns out that it is a good Dick Francis, not a bad one. I'm not sure exactly why. The plotting is not so much loose as non-existent. There's a threat, and it's perfectly clear who is involved, even if it's not clear who exactly did what actions, or who was directing them. They find out by asking. The main villain incriminates himself by doing something perfectly dim and implausible, goaded into doing it by somebody doing something that wouldn't be allowed to happen at all, even if that person were to inexplicably volunteer (as he does). Ah, well.
It isn't the characterization, either, because, you know, it's Dick Francis. Our Hero is dickfranciscan: modest, quick-thinking, physically brave, cynical, loyal and persistent. Good characteristics to have, and they work for his books, but the odd bits of specificity he tacks on to one or another hero don't differentiate them much, and this one is no different.
I'm left to wonder if this one works for us at the moment because it is the politics one. One thing that Dick Francis used to do awfully well was to take some occupation and sketch it out in an entertaining manner: merchant banking, wine retail, toymaking, filmmaking, veterinary medicine, journalism, photography, insurance, accounting and of course horserace jockeying, training and breeding. In this one, it's Our Hero's father who is in the occupation in question: politics. We follow him through a by-election and then through a cabinet position and a bid for the Prime Minister's seat. It's fun, and not so realistic as to be depressing.
Another thing I thought was good: the bad guy was a sort of political consultant, giving advice to a variety of people. The advice was always described as good, but then the guy was a Bad Guy, hit a widow in the face and tried to kill Our Hero and his father. The political advice is described vaguely, except that two female Cabinet members talk about how his fashion advice helped their careers enormously, and point to a (quite detailed) makeover he gave to one of the male Cabinet members, who winds up being the main opposition to Our Hero's father in his bid for the leadership. What I liked was, first, the idea that this fashion advice is political advice, which it is, and second that whilst acknowledging in the dialogue of the Cabinet members that there is a double-standard in play, he points out that men use their clothes politically just as women do, only without the strict scrutiny that they get.
The most annoying thing about the book is its political vagueness. Mr. Francis makes a point of not telling us what Party is in power (although it's clearly the Tories), and makes another point of not telling us any policies or policy disagreements. The politicians are problem-solvers and people-persuaders, and are bereft of either principles or platform. I suppose that's what Mr. Francis thinks politics really is like, though.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.