Hands Down

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If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us In 2000, Mary Francis died at the age of 76, and her husband, by then 80 years old, announced his retirement, which lent further fuel to long-running rumors about her role in the writing process. When that book, 1957's "The Sport of Queens," was a success, the couple decided to try a suspense novel set in the world of horse racing – and every year for the rest of their life together they published one. By all accounts, the books were a true team effort, and even as the books brought them tremendous wealth, their writing and research dominated their lives. To research 1966's "Flying Finish," Mary learned how to fly planes, eventually starting her own air taxi business and writing a guide to flying light aircraft under her own name. Felix remembers his father constantly pumping people he met at the races for details about their lives and careers that could be fodder for the books.

Dad was full of ideas . . . He would write them, and my mother would polish the prose, as it were." And, as usual, there is drama underfoot in British jump racing. His trainer friend calls him to tell him that someone is pressuring him to fix races and he's not putting up with it any more. Sid has his own problems to worry about and tells him to find someone else to help him, but when the friend's stable is set on fire, he is forced to reconsider, despite turmoil in his personal life.

Success!

Still, it's a pleasant journey down a familiar path, following Sid on his one-man, always-successful show to save British horse racing. Rewriting a lost review of Hands Down by Felix Francis. I accidentally touched a key that deleted it when I was almost finished. Bah! It happens to me a lot on Facebook and texting, too. I’m one of those techclutzy Baby Boomers😝

When we last saw Sid, he was getting by with a high-tech artificial hand that doubled as a weapon when he needed to club someone over the head. But newly married and with a child, he had decided that the detective business might not fit his lifestyle any more. Francis devises a subtle, clever scheme for the heart of the mystery, and he excels at making his broken lead credible and sympathetic.” Harry knows very little about horses, indeed he positively dislikes them, but he is thrust unwillingly into the world of Thoroughbred racing where the standard of care of the equine stars is far higher than that of the humans who attend to them.Sid is approached in a parking lot after a race by two thugs but is rescued by several partying soldiers out for the night.

Barely an hour later, his newly found father is stabbed by an unknown assailant in the Ascot parking lot. Blood oozing from his abdomen, his father warns Ned to 'be very careful.' But of whom? Of what? Ned finds himself in a race to solve his father's riddle - a race where coming in second could cost him more than even money - it could cost him his life... When his friend's stable yard is torched, horses killed, and the friend is found dead, Sid can only blame himself for not helping sooner. The police think it's suicide, but Sid is not convinced after his friend's terrified phone calls. Heavy with a guilty heart, Sid starts to investigate and soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that cuts to the very heart of the integrity of British horse racing. Sid Halley has received a hand transplant. It creeps out his wife Marina so she has left him. There are descriptions of the surgery and the rejection meds he takes.Hands Down is the sixth in the Sid Halley series, and the first since Refusal, also written by Felix Francis, in 2013. Halley fans won't be disappointed, even if the book sometimes feels a bit formulaic, and the foreshadowing a little heavy handed. (I mean, when I figure something out before Sid does…) Could it really be the case that someone was trying to manipulate all of British racing for their own greedy ends?’ Watching the news the following day, he sees that Bremner’s horse barn has gone up in flames, and several horses have been killed, including, perhaps, Bremner. Things should be good for Sid Halley. He's gotten a hand transplant and his new left hand is almost fully functional. He's given up investigating for investing which should eliminate most of the danger in his life. And he's married to his beloved Marina and has a nine-year-old daughter named Saskia who is the center of his existence.