Longshot

by Dick Francis

Hot on the heels of his runaway bestseller Straight, Dick Francis once again breaks away from the pack with his dazzling new mystery, Longshot. A starving writer turns to work that will at least pay the bills, but he soon discovers the perils of rural England. His agent had warned that his impulses would kill him, but he didn't listen--not by a longshot.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Horses

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 2, 1990

About the author

Dick Francis, CBE, FRSL (born Richard Stanley Francis) was a popular British horse racing crime writer and retired jockey.

Dick Francis worked on his books with his wife, Mary, before her death. Dick considered his wife to be his co-writer - as he is quoted in the book, "The Dick Francis Companion", released in 2003:
"Mary and I worked as a team. ... I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary's family always called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together."

Praise for Dick Francis: 'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror '

Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph '

Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National.

On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott.

During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.

Series:
* Sid Halley Mystery
* Kit Fielding Mystery

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writer John Kendall has always specialized in writing non-fiction survival guides, teaching people how to survive in the most rugged and unforgiving circumstances. Now, he has finally written a novel and his agent has sold it to a publisher. However, it will still be months before the book is actually released and begins to earn royalties (assuming it ever does). In the meantime, even living very frugally, Kendall has gone through the advance for the book and is in desperate need of money.

His agent hooks him up with a wealthy horse trainer, Tremayne Vickers, who would like to hire Kendall to write his biography. Kendall agrees to take the job, especially since it includes lodging in Vickers' large home while Kendall interviews Vickers and begins writing the book.

Kendall arrives at the Vickers farm to find a large and very interesting family living in or near Vickers' home. Most all of them are involved in the racing world in one way or another and very quickly Kendall is introduced to it as well. Some of the family members are very welcoming and nice; a couple of them are jerks, and the family has suffered a recent blow when one of the family members has been convicted of manslaughter. He somehow accidentally strangled a young woman at a party, but apparently in this jurisdiction, the crime is not enough to merit a term in prison because the guy is still footloose and fancy free and generally being a pain in the butt, especially to Kendall.

It soon turns out that another young woman associated with the farm--a trainer--has also been strangled to death and then buried in the woods nearby. Once her remains are discovered, the police will be looking closely at the Vickers family to see if there is a link between the two crimes. Inevitably, poor John Kendall will get caught up in the mess and will almost certainly need all of those survival skills he's been writing about if he's going to survive.

Kendall is a typical Dick Francis hero--bright, resilient, strong, pleasant, and a man that others almost always underestimate. This book is a bit unusual in that, unlike virtually all other Dick Francis novels, the hero has no love interest. There are a number of attractive women about, but they are all taken and so there is no one to whom Kendall might turn.

The book is fine and it's a quick read. I'm giving it three stars rather than four because it falls short of most other Francis novels in the quality of the villain. There clearly is a villain lurking here, but he's not nearly as mean, nasty, dangerous, degenerate, or threatening as most of the others that Francis has created, and the book suffers a bit as a result.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is there to say about Dick Francis? As I think about all of his books (yes, this review covers all of his books, and yes I've read them all) I think about a moral ethical hero, steeped in intelligence and goodness embroiled in evil machinations within British horse racing society - either directly or indirectly. The heroes aren't always horse jockies, they can be film producers, or involve heroes engaged in peripheral professions that somehow always touch the horse racing world.

But more than that, Francis's heroes are rational human beings. The choices made are rational choices directed by a firm objective philosophy that belies all of Francis's novels. The dialogue is clear and touched with humor no matter the intensity of evil that the hero faces. The hero's thoughts reveal a vulnerability that is touching, while his actions are always based on doing the right thing to achieve justice.

Causing the reader to deeply care about the characters in a novel is a difficult thing to do. No such worries in a Francis novel. The point of view is first person, you are the main character as you read the story (usually the character of Mr. Douglas). The hero is personable, like able, non-violent but delivering swift justice with his mind rather than through physical means. This is not to say that violence is a stranger to our hero. Some of it staggering and often delivered by what we would think of normal persons living in British society.

You will come to love the world of Steeple Chase racing, you will grow a fondness for horses, stables, trainers and the people who live in that world. You will read the books, devouring one after the other and trust me Dick Francis has a lot of novels (over 40 by my last count).

There are several series woven into the fabric of Francis's work: notably the Sid Halley and Kit Fielding series.

Assessment: Dick Francis is one of my favorite writers. I read his books with a fierce hunger that remains insatiable and I mourn his death.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ouch. John a novice writer goes to a race trainer called Tremayne to write his biography. Tremayne’s young son Gareth and other son Perkins with his wife live in the house.

A good story with a murder, accidents and survival thanks to John’s books on how to survive in the wilderness. Frances has written a tale of suspicion, jealousy and lots and of potential suspects.

The ending is excellent. Bows and arrows indeed.

SPOILERS AHEAD

John is seriously wounded by Perkins. However, he managed to stumble out of the woods and the family find him. Perkins knows John knows he murdered Angela as she was pregnant. Rather than face the music he engineers an accident while doing woodwork and bleeds to death. John recovers and keeps silent about who shot him with the arrow.

[Henry Ozogula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not read too many Dick Francis’ novels, but this one made a big impression on me since it involved the world of writing, literature, literary agents…John Kendall is a struggling writer – I have identified with this for years! – and his attempts to survive in this sphere sparked empathy from me. His (early) interactions with his agent piqued me – even if he would learn that his agent even before talking to him, had accepted a position on his behalf before deigning to brief him! Indeed there is a lot of human warmth, great intelligence, fecund interactions amongst people in Francis’ novel.

But always terrifying is the sinister, cruel proclivities of certain individuals (‘villains’) in his works. People one would not necessarily associate sheer, palpable evil with, often turning out to be incredibly malevolent. And so it turns out here too. Late in this work, we flinch with horror as our hero has an arrow embedded in him, with the concomitant excruciating pain that goes with this. Yet the tormentor is still bent on tormenting him further, by trying to pull the goddamn arrow out! Excuse me. Even now I shudder trying to imagine the throes of pain. The mystery in this work, as usual, is exceedingly brilliant, complicated yet simple in the end... Yes, Kendall is a struggling writer who has nevertheless managed to publish some "books". His encounter with an established, formidable, revered female writer late on in this work, for me, was worth the price of this book alone !

[Charles van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

RTF

[Kwoomac · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently picked up 12 Dick Francis books I didn’t own on ebay. (There are still three out there. Soon they will be mine.) I swore I would read one a month to stretch my pleasure out over a year. I did not do that, instead I read six in the past two weeks. I was not shocked by my lack of will power. Longshot, 4.5, had everything I love in a DF mystery. A mild mannered protagonist who has some sort of super power. Author John Kendall has written 6 guidebooks on how to survive under various circumstances. If lost in the jungle, for instance. We all know John is going to need those skills, while spending time in a lovely country home in a lovely village with lovely people gathering details for a biography of country home owner, a lovely, well-esteemed horse trainer. John quickly becomes a much needed cog in the wheel of the family’s daily life. John is quietly competent. (I’m having so much fun!) The bones of a missing stable girl turn up and, there you go, mystery to solve. I also enjoyed the fact that there was no love interest. I am often discomforted by how DF handles romantic situations.

[Cherisa B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always a guilty pleasure. I just love Dick Francis.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the absolute worst of Francis' books, but pretty darn close. It takes a very long half of the book for anything much to happen, and the first crime is poorly not-woven into the rest of the story. There is no way the first-person narrator and MC could be privy to what was said and done at police headquarters while he was miles away riding out at first lot! I figured out who the killer was in very short order, perhaps because the first half of the book has nothing to do with anything much. Oh, the hero this time around is a total Gary Stu who can do anything he sets his mind to, from surviving in the wild to cooking for a large family to becoming a jockey, while everyone around him spills their guts at the slightest provocation and the police turn to him for facts and answers as if he had them.

If that weren't enough, we are treated once again to Planet Francis' dictum that all real women see reproduction as the be-all and end-all of existence. We have not one but three women who are all about getting int' Pudding Club in one yarn! One can't, one didn't and one is all stars and unicorns because she manages it, like the good little uppah middle clahss gel she is. The only thing missing in this book is a labrador.

None of this was helped by David Case's dreadful, bored reading of the book. Half the time he forgets the voices and intonations he's assigned to different characters, so suddenly the MC speaks in the die-away gasp he started using for most of the women (and as a woman myself, I take umbrage) and when he tries to infuse a sense of urgency into his reading of Our Hero's dreadful brush with death, he only manages to whine.

I could have forgiven some of the book's shortcomings if Francis hadn't actually said in so many words in the text, "Someone should write a book about this and call it Long Shot." Which, by the way, is two words, not one. I remember reading this in the 1980s and remembering scraps of unimportant material, which is most of the book, anyway.

A shaky two stars, more like a star and a half given the dire audio book reader. Not a fun experience, by a very, very long shot.

[Anne Patkau · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Longshot" by top-notch Dick Francis is an arrow that just misses the heart. Narrator John Kendal meticulously details directions for constructing such, bows, traps, diagram of arteries guarding life blood, in six glossy white hardcover survival guides "Return Safe from the Wilderness" (Jungle, Desert, Sea, Ice, or Safari). Generous large racehorse trainer Tremayne Vickers invites John to leave starving in an frigid garret for a month live-in biography commission.

Daughter-in-law Mackie skids their jeep into a deep water-filled ditch, where our hero saves her, the head lad Bob Watson, client Fiona Goodhaven, and respective spouses quiet Ingrid and happy Harry, from "ice-cubery" p47. We get drawn into the family circle with sons friendly Gareth 15 (pal appropriately nicknamed Coconut 14), and otherworldly woodworker Perkin. Fiona's cousin violent jockey Nolan, arrested for strangling a party girl there the previous April, publicly attacks and threatens John.

Interspersed are third-person accounts of Berkshire-lilting local Inspector Doone finding the bones of missing strangled sleeparound stable girl Angela Brickell. Her murderer keeps on trying, inspired by the guides. John needs a strong will to save his own skin.

I'd forgotten the title, but I've enjoyed this at least thrice now. I knew the perpetrator and fate at first meeting, but I wallow in expressions like still mornings "as rare as honest beggars" p 64, that bring eccentric character voices to life, my new friends. I still fear huge horses, even after moving to the country and learning to ride Western along with new neighbors. But I read everything I can find by Francis, edge of the seat suspense. Surprise endings twist our perception of justice.

At the end, John is the loner cowboy riding off in the sunset, but the people have been more finely delineated than in modern book series that drag on too long. I mourn the author, not alive to write more; his son has not yet achieved the same pinnacle of talent.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable Francis staple – a worthy hero, plenty of horses and racing. Most of the Francis books tie the mystery plot to something Francis has obviously researched. I’ve read and learned about glass blowing, (ancient) computer viruses, and gold mining from some Francis plots, and I’ve come to expect these non-horse bits as much as the upstanding hero. And many books contain a couple of these side research plot points beyond the well known and expected horse racing touches. For “Longshot” I feel Francis may have been on a tight schedule. The unique skill described is survival, and you get the feeling he picked up a book at the shop on surviving in the British wilderness and wrote bits of that into this story. Quite a few bits. There’s always another one coming. The other “inner workings” parts of the story involved selling a book to a publisher and the workings of a horse training farm, neither of which I suspect required any additional research for this author. I felt a bit disappointed after being entertained in a more “exotic” manner in earlier books.

But that didn’t really hurt this story – it’s a good one. As I said at the beginning of this review, this is a typical Francis plot, and I enjoyed it. And since I bought 5 more at the library sale, all thick paper hardbacks, I will keep reading him.

This is the 20th Francis book I’ve read, and the first in paper (the previous ones either audio or ebooks). I believe I still prefer audio for these kinds of mysteries, since they tend to keep driving and I feel I would have completed this quicker and with as much retention and enjoyment as reading the paper novel. I can’t say the same for every author or genre of book. In my most-read author chart on Goodreads, Francis is coming strong in third behind Ross Macdonald and James Lee Burke, leaving Philip Roth and John LeCarre behind and Ian Fleming hoping to find more books to publish. The serious fiction plodders are behind and struggling to keep up.

[Pat Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Mother-in-law was reading this book over the last two and a half years. She has dementia, so she would start over on page one every day, and never got anywhere in it. She gave up about a month or two ago. I am taking care of her basic needs during the day now. So I decided to try reading the book to her last week. I just finished today. She could not really follow well for the same reasons she started over every day before. BUT, she paid full attention to every word as I read it to her. I can't get inside her head and know what that means, but I figure the paying attention was evidence that she was getting something out of it. That said, I thought the book was pretty good. The main character was a writer who gets a job writing a horse trainer's memoirs. There are a couple of murders in the book, thus the mystery, and the main character has skills in outdoor survival which come into play. He also seems to have the kind of mental skills it takes to solve mysteries as the inspector asks his advice more than once on one of the murders. The main and other characters are well described and likable. The page to page drama is interesting. And the climax and the resolution are very good in my opinion.

[James Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longshot is typical of Dick Francis' writing...fun, interesting, exciting, and breathtaking.

I really enjoyed the survival twist here and the murder mystery element had me hooked. Well worth a read for anybody who enjoys a good twist and a surprise reveal, while joining the protagonist in the journey of finding out who the villain is.

[Lynn Pribus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Francis is so reliable a read. You know the ethical and loyal hero will triumph, there are plenty of red herrings and horses (of various colors) and action. Still, the writing is not flabby or plain. He writes with verve, good depictions of people and horses and places.

Never a disapppoinment.

[Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turns out this one really holds up. Barring a couple of points where Francis brings out the character clichés this is a fresh-feeling story. Despite being written in 1990 it doesn't lean on any technology and were it not for the narrator's brief mention of his computer early on and the appearance of a carphone you'd probably have figured he wrote it back in the 60s.

I had recalled the very specific nature of the moment all Francis readers know: the gruelling bit where our hero has to dig deep inside himself for those reserves of strength to pull him through some sort near death moment.

But I couldn't recall who the villain was. Often Francis's bad guys are easy to pick out, and that rarely impacts the story, but here he really had me, and I'd read it before! (Albeit probably 30 years ago.)

[Charisa Flaherty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a slow ramble and not a very enjoyable one at that. There was a lot of build up to the actual mystery. When Angela’s bones were found I thought things were finally going to happen but alas they did not. It was very slow and uninteresting. At the reveal of who the murdere was I didn’t really feel there were many clues leading to that person but it may have just been that I was bored and not paying a lot of attention. I would have not finished this book if I was not reading it for book club.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A freelance writer, specializing in survival guides decides to write the biography of a horse trainer. There's a murder in the background, not really connected to the trainer, but everybody in the trainer's orbit is worried about it.

As usual, one murder isn't the last. Can the writer figure out who did it before he gets killed?

A lot of tension.

[Randell Carlton Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great protagonist by Francis. Thrilling, with a unique angle. 🐎

[Ruth Jalfon · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, I'm officially going through the equivalent of mind-numbing TV; enjoyable, quick and instantly forgettable plot-driven books. My mind lately has been like fizz and all I want is to read something easy and diverting so I'm raiding the children's library I run eg reading through a box set of Dick Francis that my mother also likes and gave me - I've probably read them already a few years ago, but as I said they're not memorable (and now the technology described is *really* out of date!). I'm also reading my husband's crime/mystery type books - you know, fun, fast paced, all action, describing the minutiae of the protagonist's life ie that they got up and had a shower and exactly what they ate for breakfast and that they turned the key in the ignition to start up their XXX car etc etc. So apologies if I'm dumbing down the literary level here but hey I'm still reading! (...just not the medical journals I'm supposed to be reading).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dick Francis is my favorite writer...no one quite like him. Incredible details, character development and I love the way he uses sentence structure to set a scene and convey emotion. Dick Francis was a master at that. I've read his entire collection, and this is among my top-five favorites. I'm a newspaper writer, so it was fun to relate to the anguish of writing that is expressed in this novel. I've read the entire Dick Francis collection, and am now going back through the classics on my shelf — it's like reading them for the first time. My heart was racing and I couldn't flip the pages fast enough. Great stuff.

[Belinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read a Dick Francis novel and I'd forgotten how much fun they are. Ridiculous, for sure, but full of horses and jockeys and betting and intrigue and, well, lots of fun. Francis doesn't take himself or his story too seriously and if the ending is implausible and leaves gaping holes open all over the place, I didn't mind because I'd enjoyed the journey so much.

A great holiday read.

[Catsalive · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent tale. John Kendall goes to stay with the Vickers family in Berkshire to write the biography of Tremayne Vickers, racehorse trainer extraordinaire. John fits in well, but soon after his arrival the bones of a missing girl are found nearby & the family is implicated. People talk to John easily, revealing more of themselves than usual, & he soon finds himself in some extremely dangerous situations. I enjoyed this yarn once again.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dick Francis only writes horse racing-related noir, as far as I can tell. I think my parents must have been reading him for a while, because this rather unmemorable example ended up in my hands when I was a teen.

[Tarma]

This is a very Goodread. Another excellent Dick Francis book! Intensively researched, Longshot is about survival. Not just survival in a wilderness but survival in, and of, the self.

[Bernadette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish the book. Too much detail about every little thing.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid Dick Francis book. John is an author of survival guides for a touring company and trying to become a novelist so he accepts a job from Tremayne, a horse trainer, to write his biography. Ensconced at the family home, he meets Tremayne's children, Perkins and Gareth, and Perkins's wife, Mackie. He also meets horse owners, Fiona and Henry, and their jockey cousin, Nolan, who has recently been on trial for the death of a girl at one of Tremayne's parties. There is no question that Nolan has a quick temper, as is seen when he fights with fellow jockey, Sam, who threatens to take some of Nolan's mounts. Things come to a head when the body of Angela, a former groom, is found in the woods. She went missing a year ago after one of Fiona's horses failed a drug test and suspicion was placed on Angela for giving the horse a banned substance. The police immediately suspect Henry for the death when his belt and sunglasses are found nearby the naked body and his picture is found in the girl's bag. But when someone tries to kill Henry using a trap described in one of John's books, it is obvious that he is innocent. John saves Henry's life using the survival skills that he has honed over his years with the touring company and becomes an instant hero and the latest target. When he is alone in the woods, someone again uses his own survival guide against him and shoots him with arrows that his books taught them how to make. He manages to crawl out to the road and is found and that is where we learn that Perkins is the killer. He had an affair with Angela and killed her when he found out that she was pregnant. But rather than be arrested and put his now pregnant wife through a trial, he kills himself by making it look like an accident when woodworking. I enjoyed this story even if it was a bit strange. It did not have the token romance common in most Francis books, which I appreciated, but Perkins was such a non-character, always hiding in the background, that I found it hard to reconcile that he was the killer. Also, John had a very strange and long list of jobs, from pilot to novelist to survivalist, for a guy still in his thirties.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This marks the halfway point of my reading/rereading of all of Francis’ books. This one was particularly good.

[April Andruszko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A blast from the past. I found this on the bookshelf when looking for another book. As a teen-ager I read loads of Dick Francis novels. I enjoyed revisiting this but it was a bit formulaic and predictable.

[Shalini M · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite genre, after I graduated from children's books to those for adults, used to be mystery/thriller. I loved Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason series, and books by Alistair Maclean and Desmond Bagley. However, in last few years, I have been having trouble finding the kind of thrillers I like; most of contemporary works being psychological thrillers, frequently with gruesome details, psychopaths, and child abuse. That's when someone recommended me Dick Francis (though I no longer remember who or when), and I added Longshot and Danger to my reading list.

Over the Diwali weekend, I wanted to relax with something engaging but unstressful, so I picked up Longshot for a quick read. It turned out to be fairly entertaining but unremarkable book. The protagonist, John Kendall, a budding author of fiction, is an expert on surviving in extreme conditions. Brief descriptions of these skills are sprinkled throughout the book; they are interesting, and also come in handy in the course of the events in the novel. He accepts a commission from well known horse trainer Tremayne, and comes to stay at his family home. Over time, he comes to realize the warm and compassionate nature of his employer, beneath the autocratic and sometimes unreasonable exterior. It makes for nice reading, though it is a well used trope. Kendall's interaction with Tremayne's teenage son Gareth was the best part of the book, as Gareth comes to look up to him as a mentor/elder brother.

Since the employer and the second main character Tremayne is a trainer of racing horses, there is a lot of detail about horse racing in the book (and is a consistent theme in his works, as I come to know from other reviews). Initially I read about those, but after a while I lost interest and skipped the details that didn't have a bearing on the plot.

In these kind of novels, the protagonist usually has some extraordinary skills, which gradually emerge to save others from peril. I think this one went a bit too far on this aspect - Kendall's survival skills, and keen observation and reasoning were alright (and expected), but his learning to ride racehorses well enough to become an amateur jockey in less than two weeks was rather far fetched.
Coming to the question of the genre, which is the main point, I wouldn't call it a thriller. It is a murder mystery alright, but I don't think it is a great one. The murder comes into picture after quite a bit. The identity of the murderer involved an obvious red herring, and another usual device - it turns out to be a very unlikely character. In the good ones, the path to discovery is where the tension lies, but I didn't find it to be one of those biting-your-nails kind of journey.

My rating: 2.5 stars, rounded to 3.

[Linda levenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a real fan of Dick Francis.

[Arwen56 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Romanzo di genere "giallo", che può vantare alcune caratteristiche positive. Ad esempio, i delitti avvengono coinvolgendo una cerchia di persone piuttosto ristretta, persone che, man mano che il libro precede, si imparano a conoscere abbastanza bene; diciamo che, in questo senso, "l'impianto" generale assomiglia al tipo di ambientazioni create dalla Christie: poche persone, che hanno risentimenti verso qualcuno oppure motivi validi per difendere "a spada tratta" qualcun altro. Personalmente, è l'organizzazione che preferisco nei "polizieschi". Detesto quando saltano fuori personaggi "nuovi" ogni tre per due oppure quando si scopre che l'assassino è uno che non si era mai sentito nominare prima.
I personaggi, sia pur con tutti i limiti del caso, sono abbastanza definiti, hanno una loro particolare psicologia e non sono solo marionette gettate in scena per creare superflui colpi di scena o per riuscire a tirare sino alla fine.
Infine, il mondo che fa sfondo alla vicenda, cioè quello delle corse dei cavalli, sembra ben decritto e ricostruito. Non per nulla, l’autore stesso è stato un fantino piuttosto affermato negli anni tra il 1953 ed il 1954, il che lo fa evidentemente parlare con cognizione di causa. Per contro, vi sono un paio di particolare non del tutto convincenti nel finale, particolari che ovviamente ometto di citare per non svelare nulla a chi dovesse eventualmente leggere il romanzo. E, aggiungerei anche che il lettore tende a sospettare sin da subito dell’assassino o, almeno, per me è andata così.
Comunque, in linea generale, il mio giudizio è sostanzialmente positivo.