Dick Francis Statue to be unveiled at Aintree by HRH The Princess Royal

Dick Francis life-size statue to be unveiled at Aintree

by HRH The Princess Royal on Thursday 7th April

Aintree Racecourse, home of the Grand National, is honouring Dick Francis, former Wartime RAF Pilot, Champion Jump Jockey, Bestselling Author, and Trustee of Aintree Racecourse for 20 years, with the installation of a life-size bronze statue, sculpted by renowned sculptor, William Newton. The instigator of the statue is Peter Johnson, lifelong fine art dealer, former point-to-point rider, Dick Francis fan, and founder of the British Sporting Art Trust.

The statue will stand at the top of the steps outside the Aintree weighing room with Dick looking out across the parade ring and the winner’s enclosure. It will be unveiled by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal at 2pm on Thursday 7th April, during the first day of the 2022 Grand National meeting.

The statue depicts Dick in his time as a jockey. It was inspired by the photograph taken of Dick in the parade ring with Her Majesty The Queen and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother before he rode the ill-fated Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. Even though, as we all know, that particular race ended in a disaster when Devon Loch collapsed just 40 yards from certain victory, it was still the defining moment in Dick’s life and, as such, that day is immortalised in the statue. 

In all Dick rode thirty-five times at Aintree during his riding career, including in eight Grand Nationals, and won three times over the Grand National fences — in the Topham Trophy Handicap, the Molyneux Chase and in the final running of the Champion Chase at Aintree in 1950 before the race was transferred to Cheltenham. Dick missed attending only one Grand National in the sixty years from 1947 to 2007, and acted as ‘expert summariser’ to Peter Bromley’s BBC radio commentary of the race for almost forty years until Peter’s retirement in 2001.

However, it is mostly because of his instrumental role in the 1982 Grand National Appeal to purchase the racecourse, and hence save it from becoming a housing estate, and his subsequent twenty years as a Trustee, that Dick Francis is being honoured by Aintree. And also because, as was said when he was inaugurated into the Cheltenham Racecourse Hall of Fame, “Through his many racing mystery novels, he introduced more people worldwide to British steeplechasing than any other single individual." 

For more information, and/or interviews, contact Felix Francis – felix@felixfrancis.com

CrimeFest 2022 Programme

 

Thursday 12 May 2022

13:30 - 14:20

PARTNERS IN CRIME: CRIME-SOLVING DUOS

Thomas Enger

Stuart Field

Michael Kurland

Russ Thomas

Participating Moderator: Sam Holland

14:40 - 15:30

Panel 1

ALL IN THE PAST: THE ENDURING FASCINATION WITH HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION

Kate Ellis

Mark Ellis

Carolyn Kirby

Leigh Russell

Participating Moderator: Linda Stratmann

Panel 2

BUBBLING UNDER: CREATING TENSION

Brian Price

Leslie Scase

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Cath Staincliffe

Participating Moderator: Samantha Lee Howe

15:50 - 16:40

Panel 1

TICKING CLOCKS: IS CRIME FICTION A RACE AGAINST TIME?

Steve Cavanagh

Jørn Lier Horst

Tina Orr Munro

Trevor Wood

Participating Moderator: L.F. Robertson

Panel 2

A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST: WRITING MORE THAN ONE SERIES

M.J. Lee

Douglas Lindsay

Michael Stanley (Stan Trollip)

Robert Wilson

Participating Moderator: Michael Ridpath

17:00 - 17:50

Panel 1

AUTHORS REMEMBERED

Maxim Jakubowski (on Cornell Woolrich)

John Lawton (on Jerzy Kosinsky)

Nick Triplow (on Ted Lewis)

TBC

Participating moderator: Mike Ripley

Panel 2

YOU’RE HAVING A LAUGH: HUMOUR IN CRIME FICTION

Helen Fitzgerald

Dolores Gordon-Smith

Amita Murray

Antti Tuomainen 

Participating Moderator: Nev Fountain

20:00 – 21:30: CRIMEFEST Pub Quiz, with crime writer and critic Peter Guttridge as your quiz inquisitor. Prizes to be won!

LOCATION: TBA.

Friday 13 May 2022

09:00 - 09:50

Panel 1

40 YEARS OF CHANGE: FROM THE DEPRESSED 30s TO THE SWINGING 60s

Tim Glister

Michael Kurland

John Lawton

Niki Mackay

Participating Moderator: Luke McCallin

Panel 2

STICKING TO THE LAW: POLICE PROCEDURALS

Rachael Blok

Stuart Field

Leigh Russell

G.D. Sanders

Participating Moderator: Paul Gitsham

10:10 - 11:00

Panel 1

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: NOT SO PERFECT LIVES

Tina Baker

L.F. Robertson

Amanda Robson

Catriona Ward

Participating Moderator: Caroline England

Panel 2

SUSPECT EVERYONE: TIGHT KNIT COMMUNITIES, SMALL TOWNS AND LOCKED ROOMS

Rachael Blok

James Delargy

Victoria Dowd

David Hewson

Participating Moderator: Martin Edwards

Panel 3

OUT OF UNIFORM: GIFTED AMATEURS

Elizabeth Mundy

Nell Pattison

Fiona Veitch Smith

Trevor Wood

Participating Moderator: Carolyn Kirby

11:20 – 12:10

Panel 1

THIS IS THE MODERN WORLD: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Simon Conway

Fiona Erskine

Antony Johnston

Eve Smith

Participating Moderator: Christine Poulson

Panel 2

CROOKED PATHS: PLOTS THAT TWIST AND TURN

Simon Brett

Sam Carrington

Michael Ridpath

Simon Toyne

Participating Moderator: Katerina Diamond

Panel 3

A STRANGE BUSINESS? PRIVATE EYES AND PAID SLEUTHS

Mick Finlay

Felix Francis

Cath Staincliffe

Lesley Thomson

Participating Moderator: Cathy Ace

12:30 - 13:20

Panel 1

DIVIDED SOCIETY: HATE CRIMES AND SOCIAL FACTORS

Kia Abdullah

Antony Dunford

Sarah Sultoon

Holly Watt

Participating Moderator: Michael Stanley (Stanley Trollip)

Panel 2

BURYING SECRETS: WHO KNOWS WHAT, WHEN, AND WHY?

Mason Cross

Stephen Edger

Gilly MacMillan

Russ Thomas

Participating Moderator: Emily Koch

Panel 3

NETFLIX’ THE STAIRCASE: PLEADING GUILTY TO A CRIME YOU DIDN'T COMMIT?

Steve Cavanagh (Defence)

Imran Mahmood (Prosecution)

Ayo Onatade (The Judge)

13:40 - 14:30

Panel 1

CRIME IN THE CITY: LONDON SET CRIME FICTION

Elle Croft

Biba Pearce

Jeff Dowson

Victoria Selman

Participating Moderator: Linda Mather

Panel 2

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?: CHARACTERS AT THE EDGE

Andrew Child

Katerina Diamond

Robert Goddard

Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Participating Moderator: Alex North

Panel 3

LIFE IN THE SHADOWS: SPIES ASSASSINS & COVERT OPERATORS

Antony Johnston

Samantha Lee Howe

Neil Lancaster

Robert Wilson

Participating Moderator: Alex Shaw

14:50 - 15:40

Panel 1

SLEUTHS ABROAD: CRIME IN FOREIGN CLIMES

Peter Hanington

David Hewson

Vaseem Khan

Louise Mangos

Participating Moderator: Barry Forshaw

Panel 2

TRUTH AND REALITY: RESEARCH AND SOURCES

Sue Lawrence

Imran Mahmood

Linda Stratmann

Catriona Ward

Participating Moderator: Janet Laurence

Panel 3

TOXIC: WHEN RELATIONSHIPS TURN BAD

Claire Douglas

Nina Manning

Robin Morgan-Bentley

Rebecca Thornton

Participating Moderator: Amanda Robson

16:00 - 16:50

Panel 1

Ghost of Honour: DICK FRANCIS

Felix Francis

Andrew Hewson

Participating Interviewer: Simon Brett

Panel 2

ITW: THRILLING FOR A LIVING

Alison Bruce

Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

Alex Shaw

Michael Stanley

Participating Moderator: Zoë Sharp

Panel 3

VIOLENCE & GORE: SWEET OLD LADIES & SERIAL KILLERS

Vicki Bradley

Thomas Enger

Nadine Matheson

Alan McDermott

Participating Moderator: Victoria Selman

17:10 – 18:00

Panel 1

PLAYING GAMES: WHEN SOMEONE IS TORMENTING YOUR CHARACTERS

Neil Daws

Chris Ewan

Janice Hallett

Scott Kershaw

Participating Moderator: Jane Shemilt

Panel 2

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: IN REMEMBRANCE OF MARCEL BERLINS

Barry Forshaw

Maxim Jakubowski

Mike Ripley

Karen Robinson

Participating Moderator: Peter Guttridge

18:30 – 19:30
PALM COURT

CrimeFest hosts the CWA’s Dagger Announcement Reception

The rest of the weekend's programme can be found here.

Lynda La Plante, Laura Lippman and Robert Goddard to headline 2020 CrimeFest.

Headline authors for CrimeFest - one of Europe’s biggest crime fiction conventions - have been announced. 

The 2020 convention sponsored by Specsavers is hosted from 4 to 7 June at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel and will feature icon of the genre, Lynda La Plante, the award-winning author of more than 30 internationally bestselling novels. 

La Plante was a pioneer with her 1980’s series, Widows. The show received the Hollywood treatment with a movie adaptation by director Steve McQueen in 2018.

The BAFTA award winning screenwriter and former RADA trained actress went on to create one of television’s greatest characters, DI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. Played by Helen Mirren in a career-defining performance, the hugely influential character transformed the TV landscape.

She’ll be discussing her career in her debut appearance at CrimeFest alongside Buried - the first novel in her much-anticipated new series featuring DC Jack Warr.

Laura Lippman is one of America’s most admired crime writers. The New York Times bestselling author of acclaimed standalones and the award-winning Tess Monaghan series, is lauded by readers, critics and writers alike.

A reporter for twenty years, Laura worked with the Baltimore Sun before becoming a novelist, hailed by the Washington Post as, “one of the best novelists around, period.” Along with her fiction, Lippman will be discussing her latest book of essays, My Life As A Villainess.

Robert Goddard will also feature after the author was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association’s highest accolade in 2019, the Diamond Dagger, for a lifetime achievement in crime writing.

Goddard's first novel, Past Caring, was an instant bestseller and his books went on to captivate readers worldwide with their edge-of-the-seat pace and their labyrinthine plotting. His books have been translated into over thirty languages. His 28th novel, One False Move, was published last year.

Specsavers co-founder, Dame Mary Perkins, said: “As a personal fan of the crime genre and with my own personal connection to Bristol, it’s fantastic to be involved in this annual showcase of world-class crime fiction. It’s also great to see CrimeFest developing its community activity to help make reading accessible to everyone.”

CrimeFest, now in its 11th year, is a hotbed for readers who dip into the occasional crime novel alongside die-hard fans, as well as drawing top crime novelists, editors, publishers and reviewers from around the world. It runs a series of educational and community outreach events alongside the convention.

Director and co-founder of CrimeFest, Adrian Muller, said: “CrimeFest is the most democratic of crime conventions as it’s open to all authors to take part. As such, it’s not just established names but offers an exciting and fertile ground for aspiring and new talent. There’s a friendly energy for readers and attendees, fitting the independent, vibrant spirit of our host town, Bristol.”

Up to 150 authors will descend on Bristol appearing in over 50 panels delving into diverse topics from politics to historical crime, the Golden Age of crime fiction to police procedurals, serial killers to cosy crime. There’ll also be a panel on crime fiction reviewers, honouring the late Marcel Berlins, and a ‘Ghost of Honour’ remembering Dick Francis.

Highlights include the coveted ‘Pitch an Agent’ for aspiring writers and the annual CrimeFest Awards featuring the inaugural Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award.

Other big names include award-winning bestselling crime writer and broadcaster Dreda Say Mitchell, and Sarah Pinborough, the New York Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes, adapted by Netflix for broadcast this year. 

The no. 1 bestselling Icelandic writer, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir also features with an appearance by the writer, broadcaster, dramatist and journalist Lynne Truss, famed for Eats, Shoots and Leaves alongside her comic crime novel, A Shot in the Dark.

Joining them as the Toastrix at the Gala Dinner is Zoë Sharp, creator of the Charlie Fox series of crime thrillers.

www.crimefest.com

How I took over writing the Dick Francis Novels - by Felix Francis

L-R Felix, Mary & Dick Francis (© Felix Francis)

It was all rather unplanned, almost a mistake, but one that now seems so natural, so obvious – so inevitable.

My father and mother wrote their first novel together in 1961, when I was aged eight, and, by the end of the millennium, a further 38 bestsellers had followed. Hence I grew up living in one of the greatest fiction factories of the twentieth century.

The annual book became the focus of the whole family. My chosen profession of teaching became the basis for Twice Shy, while my brother’s racehorse transport company was the inspiration for Driving Force. Even my uncle’s wine-importing business was utilised in Proof, and my architect-cousin was depicted in Decider. My mother became a pilot for Flying Finish, a photographer for Reflex and tried her hand at oil painting for In The Frame. Holidays to South Africa, Russia and Canada became the bases for new stories.

In the year 2000, my parents decided that, after completing their 39th novel, Shattered, they would retire. My father was approaching his 80th birthday and my mother’s health had never been particularly robust since she’d contracted polio in her mid twenties. She’d also had a heart attack in 1995 and had developed Parkinson’s disease on top of her lifelong asthma. It was time to step off the yearly treadmill of delivering a new manuscript every spring – time to take a well-earned rest from the stress of everyone’s expectation.

But Shattered was well named – both my mother and father were exhausted by it and, when I flew out to their Caribbean home to collect the manuscript, it was only two-thirds written with less than a week remaining before the deadline. Hence I rolled up my sleeves and set to work, sitting at my father’s computer night and day to complete the work and deliver it to the publishers on time. But that wasn’t the only part of a Dick Francis novel that I had written. As an A-level physics student I had designed the remote-controlled bomb that destroyed a light aircraft in Rat Race, I wrote the computer program in Twice Shy, and there were plentiful other bits of science related material in numerous books that all had my DNA on them.

So Shattered would be the last Dick Francis novel, at least that is what everyone thought, and not least because my dear mother succumbed to a second heart attack less than a month after the book’s publication. It really had been one book too far.

Felix Francis (© Felix Francis)

Five years later, Andrew Hewson, my father’s literary agent, invited me to lunch where he told me we had a problem – my father’s books were going out of print. Not that the stories weren’t good enough but, with no new Dick Francis for five years, everyone was forgetting about them. What we needed, he said, was a new novel, a new hardback, to stimulate the sales of the backlist. I remember looking at him as if he were mad. My father was now in his mid-eighties and had difficulty remembering what he’d had for breakfast – hardly the degree of recall needed to write a full-length novel. And my mother had been dead for five years. There was absolutely no chance.

But Andrew was seeking my permission to ask an existing and established crime writer to write a new ‘Dick Francis Novel’.

Well, I must have had a few glasses of red wine by this stage because I simply said, “Before you ask anyone else, I’d like to have a go.” To his credit, Andrew didn’t roll his eyes and ask me why I believed that someone with no measurable writing experience could pen a novel worthy of the Dick Francis name. Instead he said that he would give me two months to write two chapters and then we would see. He probably thought that, after the two months, he would get the permission he sought.

I went home and set to work – two months to write only two chapters, surely that was easy enough.

I had grown up devouring the Dick Francis books and I reckoned I knew them as well as anyone alive, including my father. But writing one was another matter. My mother had spoken to me often about the rhythm of a sentence and how she strived to produce prose that flowed smoothly off the page. Now I had to do the same.

My first decision was to resurrect Sid Halley as my protagonist. Sid was the only recurring main character in the Dick Francis canon, making his first appearance in Odds Against in 1965, returning in Whip Hand in 1979 and then again in Come to Grief in 1995. Now he would make his fourth outing.

Next I needed a plot based around the world of horseracing, in keeping with the Dick Francis custom. At the time, race fixing was in the news with a recent arrest of several jockeys. I decided that race fixing would form the basis of my story. I even settled on a book name, continuing the tradition of Dick Francis double-meaning titles. Now I was ready to start the actual writing.

Six weeks later, I sent my chapters to Andrew Hewson. I was happy with my words but I awaited Andrew’s judgement with a degree of apprehension that I hadn’t experienced since my school-exam days.

“Get on and finish it,” Andrew told me, “and go talk to your father.” The first appeared less daunting than the second. But I gave my dad the two chapters to read and he became very keen on the project. Satisfied and relieved, I set to work completing the manuscript.

Under Orders was published in September 2006 to great fanfare from the publishers but without my name on it anywhere – a situation that was my idea. If the plan was to stimulate the backlist, then it had to be a ‘Dick Francis’ book.

It sold well, of course it did with ‘Dick Francis’ on the cover, but I waited nervously for the reviews. I fully expected them to say that Dick had finally lost his touch, but they didn’t. Quite the reverse, in fact, with most claiming the master was back in the saddle. Everyone was delighted. A book conceived only to give the backlist a boost, suddenly had a life of its own, topping the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. The publishers wanted another one, so I started writing Dead Heat. I would have been happy for it also to appear with only Dick Francis on the cover but the American publishers insisted that mine should be seen alongside his, albeit in the smallest typeface they could find.

And so it has gone on and here we are in 2017 and my twelfth novel, Pulse, is published this

September. Over the years the Dick Francis name has gradually become smaller while mine has grown so that the positions are now completely reversed. But it is my decision to keep calling the books a ‘Dick Francis Novel’ even though the man himself passed away in 2010. I consider that he and my mother are as much a part of my books as I feel a part of theirs. A ‘Dick Francis Novel’ is a brand and I suspect I will go on writing them for as long as I can and for as long as people want to read them.

And did it work?

Very much so. All the Dick Francis books are still in print and still selling strongly. They have even been reissued in new editions with new cover artwork.

Job done.

Jeff Hinkley – why bring him back? by Felix Francis

Front Runner is my tenth novel and the fifty-first Dick/Felix Francis book. In the first fifty there have only been two recurring lead characters. Sid Halley made his debut way back in 1965 in Odds Against. It was fifteen years before he turned up again in Whip Hand in 1980. Back for a third time in Come to Grief in 1995, he made his fourth appearance in Under Orders in 2005 and, most recently he was the protagonist of Refusal in 2013. Fortunately for him, he has aged rather less than the rest of us over the forty-eight-year period.

Apart from Sid, only Kit Fielding has made more than one appearance, in the two consecutive novels Break In and Bolt in 1985 and 1986, and that was only because my father did not have the chance to research a new lead character as he was, at the same time, also writing the official biography of Lester Piggott.

Otherwise, the general Francis rule has been: new book – new main character. As my father always said, it made filling the pages easier if there was a different lead man to describe and develop. Add to that the problem of not wanting to write books that have to be read in a specific order, and I could fully understand my father’s reluctance to make recurring characters the norm.

So, then, why have I chosen to bring back Jeff Hinkley, the hero of Damage, in Front Runner? And that’s not all – Jeff will be making a third outing in the novel I am currently writing, and who’s to say he won’t be in the next one as well, and maybe some more after that.

I have done it partly because I felt there was some unfinished business for Jeff in Damage. My editor and publisher were also keen to have Jeff back and I believed it was the time, maybe, to write a series. Most of my fellow crime-writing authors have repeating main characters, such as Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus or Peter James’s Roy Grace to name just two. Should I join them?

I have certainly found the experience interesting, if not always easy. The primary difficulty being the need to create a story that can be read in isolation from the others in the series without the need for prior knowledge from previously written works.

I believe very strongly that one’s lead character has to go on a ‘journey’ as the story progresses. To be a success, it is essential that people care about the protagonist. They don’t have to necessarily like him, but they do have to care what happens to him and also how the story unfolds around him. If readers don’t care, they will not finish the book. Hence I feel that, in each subsequent appearance, Jeff needs to have a different starting point and then move forward from there. And yet, he cannot change too much as the books, if read in reverse order of writing, would appear disjointed and unreal. Obviously, I would like everyone to enjoy the books in the same sequence as they were written but it doesn’t always work that way. Time will tell if I have it right.

So Jeff is back in Front Runner, and things in his life have changed somewhat. Lydia, his long-term girlfriend in Damage, has left him for another man and, consequently, Jeff is in considerable emotional turmoil. Add to that the fact that someone is trying to kill him for reasons unknown to him or to the reader, and there is ample scope for Jeff’s new journey.

Unlike the ‘traditional’ murder-mystery where a police detective arrives to inspect the still-warm corpse before proceeding to unravel the myriad of clues and solve the crime in the final chapter, most Francis protagonists have been amateur sleuths, usually thrown into situations from which they try to extricate themselves by finding out what the hell is happening to them – and why. However, as an undercover operative for the British Horseracing Authority, Jeff Hinkley is a professional investigator. I rather think he has to be if he’s going to be in a series. Miss Marple apart, there are very few amateur detectives likely to encounter even a single murder in their lives let alone a whole string of them. At least, as a member of the horseracing police, Jeff is likely to come across some crime and intrigue to investigate.

Not that Front Runner is all about racing. It’s not. My readers do not have to know a single thing about horses, not even which end eats and which doesn’t. The book is concerned with two-legged beings not four. Horseracing is simply the canvas against which I paint the story.

But you might just learn a thing or two about the Sport of Kings on the way.

I certainly hope so!

Front Runner by Felix Francis is published 10^th September by Michael Joseph, price £18.99 in hardback

© Felix Francis 2015

Front Runner

Jeff Hinkley is back. In his role as an undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority, Jeff is approached by the multi-time champion jockey and friend, Dave Swinton, who is being blackmailed into purposefully losing races. The next day, Jeff narrowly avoids a painful death in a sauna, and Dave is found dead. Though the police declare it a suicide, Jeff suspects something much more sinister is at play.

As Jeff starts to uncover layer upon layer of blackmail, more attempts are made on his life – each one increasingly close to striking home. He has one relief – the beautiful Henrietta who whisks him away from his troubles and hopefully from danger to the Cayman Islands. But is he really safe? His enemies are desperate to prevent him from investigating their crimes, whatever the cost..

More information about Felix Francis and his work can be found on his website.  You can also follow him on Twitter @felix_francis.  You can also find him on Facebook.