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