Bloodline (Published in 2012) - Authored by Felix Francis, continuing with legacy of Dick Francis

In Bloodline, Mark Shillingford is a television commentator, and his twin sister Claire (the number of twins in Francis’ stories is mind boggling!) is a famous steeplechase jockey. Mark covers horse races, in most of which Claire is riding. On one such occasion, he brings to the notice of the audience that Claire deliberately lost a race, though this went unnoticed, supposedly, by many present. Angry that Mark should tell the world so, Claire and he have an angry exchange over a tension ridden meal later. Claire tells him that it isn’t such a grand deal, admitting that she has done so four or five times earlier. Leaving in a huff, the two return to their respective homes - when Mark arrives at his, the ID on the display of his phone tells him its Claire; anticipating more anger, he doesn’t answer her call. When he does choose to listen in - there is only silence from the other end, so he hangs up.
Several hours later, she is dead, plunging fifteen stories down to her death from the balcony of the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, central London. Mystery surrounds her death - did she jump or was she pushed? Why was she in a hotel in Park Lane, after having mentioned to Mark that she was, infact, heading for their home in Newmarket? The police support the suicide theory, insisting it makes sense after reading the note found in Claire’s room. Their father is cold and distant, sinking into the oblivion of gloom and anger after his daughter’s tragic demise. Only Mark seems hell bent on getting to the bottom of the conspiracy (if any) and wants to fight for justice for Claire.




Delving into the dark mystery, Mark uncovers a sinister plot dealing with fixing races; this supports his theory that Claire had no intention of killing herself. On the other hand, a yellow scribe writes a piece about Claire, being nasty and unkind to her to say the least, insinuating that Mark too has some murky skeletons in his closet. Later Toby Woodley, the rake writer, is found knifed to death; obviously, the police suspect Mark to have a hand. Later Mark discovers that Claire was a victim of blackmailing – her trainers and members of the equestrian fraternity seem involved.
The best aspect of the Francis duo is that the novels are simple narratives - not long winded and plagued with equine jargon. However one point to be made is that Felix has to learn to create male characters that respect women - Mark seems to bed them first, and as an afterthought enquire about their lives much later. The race fixing plot has been the discussed in Dick Francis’s other novels as well, but Felix Francis seems to rely heavily on it. Although Felix lacks his late father’s insight into the world of equestrian sport, yet has the requisite charm of storytelling given the fact that he co authored four novels with Dick, and of course, genes matter, too!
The book is the second solo attempt for Felix to keep the memory of his father alive - and although the Sr. Francis penned almost more than forty novels, his legacy seems to be in safe hands in the future!

Red Rabbit (published in 2002) - Authored by Tom Clancy, but a disappointment

When a best-selling author publishes a book that is not as good as the books that he typically writes, it can still be successful, but dedicated fans tend to be disappointed at such an effort. Red Rabbit is one such book. It was a book written far after the fall of the Soviet Union (which happened in 1991), but this book was published in 2002. So, even when you go to the Amazon page of the book, it is nowhere near being a top-seller and in fact, reviews of the book are more negative than positive.
However, overall Tom Clancy was an accomplished writer, having turned out a number of topseller books, starting with The Hunt for Red October, which was a bestseller when it came out. The level of detail of military equipment, and the storytelling of intelligence operations as if from an insider made these books great reading for his fans, and at one point of time, even the then US President had handed out praise for Tom Clancy. After this, he turned out a number of books, dealing with the military, intelligence operations and politics, dealing with conflicts of the US with the Soviet Union, with Islamic terrorists, and with China. These were thick books, with a lot of detail, but they were interesting reading. The level of detail provided of a thermonuclear weapon as it started exploding was very detailed (even if it would not be fully accurate) in the novel, The Sum of All Fears.




Red Rabbit was a novel written way past all these, but dwelt on a chapter of history which was very controversial. There was an attack by a Turk called Mehmet Ali Agca on a Polish Pope, a Pope who was seeming to challenge the Soviet Rule over Poland and the rest of East Europe. Even though the Soviets were dismissive of the Pope, many sections of East Europe were catholics, and susceptible to calls from a Pope to fight communism. At such a stage, what would happen if the Pope were to invoke an open call to defeat communism, at least in his native country, Poland. What would happen if the Pope were to say that he would step down from the papacy and come back to his country to fight against communism. This would be a battle that the Communists would find it hard to win easily, and so something to avoid at all costs.
The warped solution ? Get rid of the Pope by assassination. And how to prevent this ? A KGB agent, armed with this knowledge, defects since he wants no part of this plan, and Ryan, along with the husband and wife intelligence officer duo of Ed and Mary Pat Foley have to get involved to stop this assassination.
In reality, the pope did not resign, but he did inspire a lot of effort against the Soviet domination of East Europe. There was an assassination attempt on him, but whether the effort was inspired by the Bulgarian intelligence agency is not something that is said with 100% accuracy right now.