TRIAL RUN

Well, now we know why Dick Francis has always stuck close to his formula of horse-racing-and-physical-ordeals. Within that formula, he is fresh, inventive, and like no one else; without that formula, as in this espionage-in-Moscow caper, he's perfectly acceptable but lacking in the special character that has made him a widespread addiction. True, there is some horseplay here: gentleman farmer Randall Drew is begged by a member of the royal family to go to Moscow to investigate rumors about a possible murder and some danger for a prospective member of the British Olympic Riding Team at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. And Randall does barely avoid being trampled and, later, frozen to death in the Moscow River. But mostly his inquiries in Moscow involve a talky, predictable round of secret rendezvous, fears about bugging and surveillance, and exclamations of surprise at the repression in everyday Soviet life. Worse yet, the solution hinges on a plot device that Dick Francis could certainly have left to the second-raters: crazy terrorists. By anyone else's standards—tightly written, competent suspense. By Francis standards—unexciting, cliche-ridden, and only occasionally colored with the author's distinctive character.