LONGSHOT

Middling, readable Francis thrills—with a serviceable murder-mystery, some harrowing violence, horses in the background (if not central to the plot), and lots of filler about wilderness-survival literature. The young, plucky, good-hearted hero this time is narrator John Kendall, a travel/survival-writer and would-be novelist who's short of cash—and therefore agrees to write the authorized biography (a likely vanity-press item) of celebrated racehorse trainer Tremayne Vickers. (The job includes room-and-board at the Vickers manse.) Unenthusiastic at first, Kendall warms up soon after taking up residence with the Vickers family. He grows fond of the brusque yet thoughtful trainer; of Vickers' motherless teen-age son; of pretty assistant-trainer Mackie, who's married to Vickers' older son (a furniture-maker). Also, Kendall finds that he enjoys riding—and is good at it. Then, however, local police fund the remains of Angela Brickell, a nymphomaniacal teenager who disappeared several months back after working as one of the "lads" at the Vickers stables. So tensions mount as everyone wonders whodunit. Was it genial upper-crust horse-owner Harry Goodhaven? Or randy jockey Sam Yaeger? Or amateur rider Nolan Everard, already found guilty in the manslaughter strangulation of a young woman? Or. . .? Things get slightly more complicated when someone tries to kill dear Harry—who's saved from a horrid drowning by John. And eventually, because John is proving a clever sleuth, the killer stalks him—in a grisly finale that has John, pierced through with an arrow, enduring a formidable survival-ordeal. Rather slow-moving (about 100 pp. too long) and predictable—but okay entertainment in the later, lesser Francis manner, without the foolish tedium of Hot Money or The Edge.