Dick Francis 
10lb Penalty 11 Sept
1997 About the Author Bibliography Dick Francis
10lb Penalty 11 Sept
1997
About the Author
Bibliography
10lb Penalty
Inspired from meeting John Major at Lords last summer, Dick
Francis' 36th novel combines horse racing with politics.
At eighteen, easy-going young Benedict Juliard has no stronger
ambition than to ride as an amateur jockey. His father, George, driven by powerful urges
towards a life of public service and politics, asks his only son to enter into a pact that
neither of them will commit any act that could destroy the father's growing reputation and
career. Ben agrees lightheartedly, but ten years later finds himself targeted in a vicious
attack mounted by his father's increasingly violent political enemies. Through the son,
the father is to be discredited and destroyed exactly as George feared.
As George makes his ambitious drive towards the Prime
Ministership and occupancy of No. 10 Downing Street, Ben is plunged into a frightening
morass of lies and treachery.
In practice, a 101b penalty is the maximum extra weight a
winning thoroughbred is normally set to carry in a horse race.
A 101b penalty can be a killer.
'To The Hilt is one of the best,
with a great depth of characterisation plus, as ever, non-stop action. Francis keeps us
turning the pages because he knows how to make us root for the good guy - and we are
waiting, desperately waiting, for justice to triumph at the finishing post.' Daily
Express
'To The Hilt is excellent on the
bitter rivalries within a family and, more remarkably, on the breathless exhilaration of
creating a great painting.' Sunday Telegraph
'Dick Francis seems never to lose any of his
capacity to thrill his readership. His mastery of pace, his command of narrative and his
frightening control of complex plots make him a real power in the land.' Yorkshire
Post
About The Author
Dick Francis was born in Pembrokeshire,
South Wales, in October 1920. As a youngster, Dick Francis was a keen horseman and won
many 'best boy rider' awards at all the major horse shows between the wars. In 1940 he
joined up in the RAF and finished the war as a Lancaster bomber pilot having initially
trained on Spitfires. On demobilisation he returned to the saddle, becoming a steeplechase
jockey. He was Champion Jockey in the 1953-54 season and is perhaps best known for riding
the luckless Devon Loch, owned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, when he
came so heartbreakingly close to winning the 1956 Grand National when Devon Loch slipped
up just 40 yards from the winning post when well in front.
In 1957 he gave up riding professionally and joined The Sunday Express as their
racing correspondent. He published his racing autobiography, The Sport of Queens,
in December 1957, and his first thriller, Dead Cert, in 1962. There has been
a bestselling novel every year since. Forfeit (1968), Whip Hand
(1979) and Come to Grief (1995) each won an Edgar Allen Poe Award for best
novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the only author to win more than one of this
prestigious award. In addition he has received Silver, Gold and Diamond Dagger awards from
the Crime Writers Association and an OBE from the Queen. In 1991 he was awarded an
honorary doctorate by Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and in 1996 he was created
Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
From being the Royal Jockey he has become the Queen Mother's favourite thriller writer.
Each year Dick Francis signs a copy of his new novel, hot off the press, and delivers it
to Clarence House.
Dick Francis and his wife Mary now live in the Cayman Islands, British West Indies.
10lb Penalty (Michael Joseph, 11 Sept 1997)
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