The last place veteran horseman Randall Drew wanted to go was Moscow. But when his royal highness the prince asks a favor, one doesn’t refuse. The Royal Family is worried about the prince’s brother in law, who aims to make the Olympics. Unfortunately a jealous Russian rider has sworn to kill him if he sets one hoof in Moscow. So Randall leaves his thoroughbred horses and loving girlfriend to investigate. But what he finds is more than jealousy. It’s a terrifying track of sabotage and murder. And now that he knows, the killer is after him.

The victory was hollow for Alan. He had been running a close second behind his good friend Bill Davidson, when Bill’s horse unexpectedly jerked as he soared over the steeplechase fence. Now, Bill was dead from his injuries, and Alan knew it wasn’t an accident. A small menacing thread of wire dangled from the top of the fence—a carefully constructed plot of malice. Curious, Alan begins an investigation that points to corruption that transcends the racing circuit—seeping into the town surrounding the track.

When reporter Bert Chekov falls to his death, his colleague James Tyrone is suspicious. Chekov’s column had recently recommended some ‘can’t-lose’ horses, who then wound up out of the running on race day. Tyrone thinks he can prove it was murder, but he may not live to tell the tale. Because as the dead man has already made clear, there’s no such thing as a sure thing...

Steeplechase jockey Derek Franklin has had more broken bones than he cares to count, but it seems his latest injury could very well bring his days on the race course to a screeching halt. But that’s the least of his concerns when his brother turns up dead, leaving Derek as the sole inheritor of his estate. It doesn’t take long for Derek to learn that his brother—a magistrate who imported and sold semiprecious stones—was keeping more than his share of secrets.

Jockey Kelly Hughes and trainer Dexter Cranfield have been barred from racing - a devastating event for them both. The charge at the secret enquiry? Throwing a race for personal profit. It is a vicious frame-up and, worse, they have nowhere to turn to clear their names. Still Hughes refuses to take the phony verdict lying down - even though his personal enquiry might have him lying down permanently...

Hired to fly four racing buffs to the track, pilot Matt Shore expects it will be the kind of job he likes: quick and easy. That is until he’s forced to make an emergency landing just minutes before the plane explodes. Luckily nobody is hurt, but it isn’t long before Matt realizes that he’s caught up in a rat race among violent criminals, who are dead set on putting anyone who stands in their way on the wrong side of the odds.

Steven Scott is relatively new to horses. A successful, wealthy inventor, he takes up horse racing as a hobby - a hobby that soon brings him winner after winner under the inspired guidance of his trainer, Jody Leeds. Currently both their reputations are wrapped up in a beautiful black hurdler named Energise. But just when Steven is winning at both women and horses, he discovers deceit in his own stables. Termination of the troublemaker marks Steven for his own termination - and much sooner than he can imagine...

Longtime jockey Philip Nore is no hero. But when he begins to suspect that a racetrack photographer’s fatal accident was really murder, he sets out to discover the truth and trap the killer. Slowly, he unravels some nasty secrets of corruption, blackmail and murder—and unwittingly sets himself up as the killer’s next target....

When Thomas Lyon decides to make a movie based on an unsolved crime that shocked the horseracing world in Wild Horses, he discovers that someone will do anything - including commit murder - to make sure this story isn't told.

Featuring the gripping plot, dramatic settings and believable characters that listeners have come to expect from Dick Francis, To the Hilt displays the master at the top of his form.

Architect and family man Lee Morris never gave much thought to the shares he inherited of the Stratton Park racecourse, the multi-million dollar property owned by the powerful Stratton family. His mother had first received the shares to keep her quiet about the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her first husband, Keith Stratton. Now, much to Lee's chagrin, he is being drawn into the thick of the Stratton family squabbles as they wage a furious debate over the future of the race track.

Dick Francis, the bestselling master of mystery and suspense, takes you into the thrilling world of horse racing. In the middle of the night, two masked men break into Neil Griffon’s home and abduct him. He quickly discovers that unless he agrees to their unreasonable demands, they will destroy his father’s precious horse and racing stable, and ultimately Neil himself. Returned to his father’s stables, he must find a way to bring down these criminals, because having to choose between his integrity and his life is no choice at all.

When globe-hopping British First Secretary Peter Darwin returns to his childhood home for a visit, he is sorry. Waiting for him were long-hidden memories, a string of racehorse deaths and homicide. As Darwin begins to realize that the key to all of it involves his own past, he wishes he'd never come back, because he just might never leave again—alive.

hampion jockey Robert Sherman has disappeared right before his wife was about to give birth. And right before he was sure to win the National. A coincidence? British investigator David Cleveland doesn’t think so. He’s convinced someone made Sherman disappear, but with every answer David gets, the body count rises. And if he isn’t careful, the next body might just be his own.

For a generous commission, ex-prizewinning jockey Jonah Dereham reluctantly agrees to bid on a young steeplechaser on behalf of a wealthy American woman. But his life is thrust into danger immediately following the auction, when he receives a blow to the head by two thugs demanding ownership of the horse.

Polly has two sets of memories.... One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was 10 and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. And then she did something terrible, and everything changed. But what did she do? Why can't she remember? Polly must uncover the secret, or her true love - and perhaps Polly herself - will be lost.

Getting a life isn't always easy. And hanging on to it is even harder.... Jodi Taylor brings all her comic writing skills to this heartwarming tale of self-discovery. Known as The Nothing Girl because of her severe stutter and chronically low self-confidence, Jenny Dove is only just prevented from ending it all by the sudden appearance of Thomas, a mystical golden horse only she can see. Under his guidance Jenny unexpectedly acquires a husband - the charming and chaotic Russell Checkland.

Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding, but the party is warm and hospitable except for the presence of Jacobson, the sinister butler. The other guests are wealthy people draped in jewels; Jim cannot imagine why he belongs in such company. After a weekend of adventure with attempted robbery and a vanishing guest, secrets come to light, and Jim unravels a mystery from his past.

An unbearably tense novel of revenge, murder, bereavement and the destructive force of passion. The single-mother families of the isolated community under the shadow of the Pyderhorn, Bergen's greatest mountain, are being terrorised by a teenage gang. But teenage violence is nothing compared to what awaits detective Varg Veum when he gets to know the blue-eyed Wenche Andersen.

Charged with gross incompetence, Satan is fired from his job as prince of Hell and exiled to that most terrible of places: English suburbia. Forced to live as a human under the name of Jeremy Clovenhoof, the dark lord not only has to contend with the fact that no one recognizes him or gives him the credit he deserves but also has to put up with the bookish war-gamer next door and the voracious man-eater upstairs.

After an eventful first few months in Provence, it seems Penelope is finally settling into her delightful new life, complete with a gorgeous love interest in the mayor of St. Merlot. When Penelope and the mayor attend a glamorous gallery opening, Penelope’s biggest worry is embarrassing herself in front of her date. But the evening takes a horrifying turn when a controversial expat painter, Roland Doncaster, chokes to death.

For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife's death while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents' estate in the Scottish countryside. Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening.

Meet Jack Irish, criminal lawyer, debt collector, football lover, turf watcher, trainee cabinetmaker, and the best Australian crime character we've seen in years. When Jack receives a puzzling message from a jailed ex-client, he's too deep in misery over Fitzroy's latest loss to take much notice. Next thing Jack knows, the ex-client's dead and he's been drawn into a life-threatening investigation involving high-level corruption, dark sexual secrets, shonky property deals and murder.

He is a record collector and a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the Vinyl Detective, and some people take this more literally than others. For example, the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy yet shadowy client. And so begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all....

It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea. Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it - not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.

After botching a suicide attempt, salaryman Hanio Yamada decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper. Soon interested parties come calling with increasingly bizarre requests and what follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots - even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can't seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the crosshairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate.

The assignment begins with a simple errand - a parcel to deliver. But to Alan Stewart, standing on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, it looks anything but simple. The desolate terrain is obstacle enough. But when Stewart realises he has been double-crossed and that the opposition is gaining ground, his simple mission seems impossible....

The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.