The racing thriller genre? Jilly Cooper, but with psychos in the hay barn instead of rolls in the hay, right? Francome is racy enough certainly, but this is pretty good. A jockey turned racing commentator, he knows his stuff, but doesn't get bogged down in racing terminology.He's good on the psychology of the racing set too: a jump jockey has lost his nerve after a fall; his wife talks horses back to health.
And he writes deftly about tough gruff trainers and bastard owners.
Dead Weight's plot centres around a disgruntled punter who believes that the racing world is corrupt, that jockeys and trainers throw races. He decides to take matters into his own hands by knocking off a few. It's the standard journey of rediscovery: will Phil, the jockey who has lost his bottle, find the courage to face The Beast?
Nicely written, well-paced, Francome proves a surprising find - although selling jockeys in jodhpurs as sex-on-a-horse is a task that even Jilly is unequal to.
