Comeback

by Dick Francis

A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers.

Foreign Office diplomat Peter Darwin is returning to England, back to his childhood home of Gloucestershire. But instead of a pleasant trip down memory lane, Peter finds himself coming to the aid of a veterinary surgeon whose operating theatre is rapidly turning into an abattoir.

In fact a string of valuable racehorses have suffered unexplained deaths, and the police are baffled. When Darwin looks into the mystery he finds that his connections - and his memories - help him uncover criminal activities that stretch back all the way to his childhood.

But the more Darwin uncovers, the closer he gets to a killer who just can't stop...

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

'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman

'Francis writing at his best' Evening Standard

'A regular winner . . . as smooth, swift and lean as ever' Sunday Express

'A super chiller and killer' New York Times Book Review

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

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

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]

The protagonist in the thirtieth novel by Dick Francis is a British diplomat named Peter Darwin. He has some downtime between assignments and, through a combination of bizarre circumstances, he finds himself back in his childhood hometown of Gloucestershire. There he befriends a veterinary surgeon named Ken McClure. McClure seems to be having a terrible run of luck in that several valuable horses that he has operated on recently have died mysteriously following their surgery. McClure's reputation is being trashed and he may lose his practice as a result.

Darwin attempts to use his investigative and diplomatic skills to figure out why the horses might be dying. Naturally, he suspects foul play and soon winds up in a messy thicket of intrigue that stretches back a generation and involves some very unsavory characters. As the plot thickens, people as well as horses begin to die, and if Darwin isn't careful, he could be the next to go.

I confess that this book did not work nearly as well for me as most of the other Dick Francis novels I've read. The complicated process by which Peter Darwin meets and befriends McClure stretched credulity for me, and the plot did not seem nearly as tense and exciting as in most other Francis novels. The cast of characters was large and a bit confusing, and there are long extended discussions of the ways in which veterinarians treat a variety of equine ailments. In particular, there are several extended discussions of the drugs that vets use to treat horses and the ways in which those drugs might be abused to injure horses.

Readers who enjoy that sort of minute detail will no doubt like this book a lot more than I did, but for me it all became a bit mind-numbing. I've really enjoyed most all of the Dick Francis novels I've read through the years, some of them a couple of times. This, though, is one that I probably won't be coming back to.

[W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Darwin comes home to England after completing his posting in Tokyo.Along the way,he stops in the US and meets a couple who have run into a bit of trouble and ask him to accompany them to England.

The Francis heroes are all good samaritans,always ready to help perfect strangers regardless of the personal risk to themselves.

Their daughter's fiance is a vet,and many horses have died as he has operated on them.Then,his hospital is burnt,and a charred body is discovered.

Later,there is another gruesome murder.Peter Darwin sticks around to help them in an extremely dangerous situation.He is confronted by several characters from his childhood.This was the town where he had lived as a child.

Francis goes into a lot of details about the various ways in which horses can be killed on a vet's operating table.That gets a bit boring.

There is a large cast of characters,which helps to disguise the identity of the culprit.Not among his best thrillers,but Francis hardly wrote any bad books.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been quite a while since I've read a Dick Francis book, and this one seemed a bit more complicated than most of his mysteries. So it was not the quick mindless read I had planned on but required my attention. Peter Darwin is a foreign diplomat between assignments who comes to the aid of a couple and finds himself accompanying them back to England very near his childhood home. The couple's daughter works at a vet practice and is engaged to be married but recently her fiancée, a surgeon that specializes in horses, has had a run of terrible results and his reputation and practice is on the line. Peter takes a liking to the man and after part of the vet practice goes up in flames, he begins to apply his diplomatic skills and memories of the area's past to sleuthing. It's a very tangled web indeed. I was quite immersed, just so sorry for the demise of too many horses!!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Darwin no relation to Charles Darwin is a diplomat who ends up investigating the deaths of several horses during operations. Ken is a veterinarian surgeon who Peter befriends when he escorts his future in laws who he saved from a mugging in Florida.

Ken cannot understand why horses he operates on are dying. I actually enjoyed all the details about how you can poison horses. Fascinating but I am curious about how things work.

The practice where Ken works suffers a fire and a body is discovered. Later there is another murder. Peter finds love with Annabel the bishops daughter. The reveal that the elderly Carey is the murderer is a surprise. I thought it was the nasty Oliver in league wit Jay. However, the police would have checked peoples financial records and would probably uncover Carey’s losses and motive of money.

[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.

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, there's a really weird and gratuitous sluts/wives thing going on. I don't know what that's about, nor do I want to know. If any of the weird romantic stuff in any of these books has some basis in biography, I do not want to know.

Here's an interesting thing: even if I don't remember plot, motive, solution, location, etc. I do always remember the graphic violence associated with each book. Kudos to the Francii for evoking some vivid images.

And I also liked the stuff about UK foreign service, particularly as it differs from US.

Personal copy

[Chhavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trust Francis to not only give you a look inside the world of large animal (horse, primarily) veterinarian practice but also a glimpse of diplomacy.
:) This was clearly one of his later books -- not only are there "portable" telephones, but also some casual sex. Woohoo, so modern! :)
I loved this. The big reveal came 95% of the way through but never a slack moment.

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

Well constructed, but don't read this if you object to animal abuse, as most of the murder victims are in fact horses, including a mare in foal. When your actual human is murdered, the torture-porn aspect gets a trot around the paddock. Our Hero is a civil servant, another fatherless Francis MC, but in this case instead of being a marginal drifter he is codependent--he just can't help butting in and taking care of everyone within reach, whether they like him for it or not. That doesn't stop him being very James Bond in the denouement. The murder weapon was laughably far-fetched.

Francis' dislike of America and its people was rather evident in the first few chapters of the book. I can't see the point of dressing The Girl like a 1960s bimbo in 1991, unless the author didn't like her much, either. I don't think he did, as she is simply window-dressing with about as much personality as a wet sponge.

Unfortunately the audio book was read by the dismal David Case, with his affected (acquired? faked?) uppah clahhs drawl and bored lack of inflexion. This was not helped by suddenly halfway through the text deciding to have the MC's voice go from normal male to the breathy, die-away voice which is all he appears to have for women characters.

[Rog · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read many Dick Francis books. If I find one that I haven't read, then I grab it because they are well written and enjoyable enough to be worth time spent. Mr. Francis' books typically have an English hero, his companion, and at least one interesting villain. Like most of his books, this story centers around race horses and "horse people". I really liked the "Comeback" story about a British consul that falls in with a group of luckless veterinarians. The story is lively with fun characters. The one negative comment that I have is the end of "Comeback" is rather abrupt. It wasn't a bad ending. The major conflict is resolved in quick fashion, however, other minor conflicts show up in the story but the are not resolved. The ending kept me from giving the book a four star rating. Typical endings of Mr. Francis books wraps things up nicely at the end of his stories.

[Carol Jones-Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy reading a good Dick Francis novel. They are pretty clean, the language isn't too bad, and not a lot of sex.... Sometimes I even reread the books, because it's like being with a friend you haven't seen in several years. I really enjoy the characters he uses, and also enjoy the series he writes about too. I'm not a gambler, but I really enjoy watching them live, as well as on screen. There is a certain excitement that I don't find in many other places.

[Noa Leibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comback is the story of a man named Peter Darwin who visits friends and finds a curious situation going on at an equine vetrinary clinic. He works to solve the unexplainable deaths of several prized racehorses before it's too late. I found the book extremely intriguing, and would love to read another Dick Francis book sometime soon.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, all I'm saying is that Dick Francis should have considered making the key love interest be Peter and Ken. I SAID IT. Annabel and Belinda have nothing on Peter turning up and risking death and murder and intrigue to save Ken's professional reputation when he'd known Ken approximately three seconds. That is to say: I did not start any new Christmas books because I was too knee deep in this, which probably says more than I want it to.

[Bethel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read. Not about the actual horse racing but this is about the vet's who treat horses and fraud. Very interesting

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Comeback” is another enjoyable horse-related mystery by Dick Francis. The comeback in the title refers to our hero, Peter Darwin, returning to his home town after years in the foreign service. He immediately gets involved in a mystery concerning horses dying of various causes, often after treatment by a vet about Peter’s age. Peter becomes his friend in the book, and that was probably the most endearing part of the story. You don’t seem to see men becoming friends often in these short mystery books, and this seemed quite believable. Francis’ books always focus on some other business besides the racing that he features, and here we dive into the life and personality required to be a foreign service officer as well as the life of a veterinarian. The vet’s days are detailed, including descriptions of offices, partnership structures, and surgeries that were strangely enthralling – this is the kind of stuff Francis excels at. The racing life makes a rather limited appearance here, more the background than the focus. I enjoyed this one quite a lot, but I thought that the hero of the story had a major lapse at the end that wasn’t character-like but did cause the story to end abruptly, and not quite logically to my thinking. The characters didn’t know how to solve the mystery, and perhaps Francis didn’t know how to solve it either.

[Katt Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't have thought to combine diplomats and veterinarians, but leave it to Dick Francis to make it all work out.

As usual we have a do-gooder hero in the wrong place at the wrong time, with just enough time on his hands to become embroiled in a complicated story about too many horses dying on the operating table (or thereabouts) and one poor vet who's being blamed with no discernible reason why.

I like the various twists and turns of a Dick Francis story. This one became decidedly complex, pulling in the previous generation and showing the reader just how twisted the children of a callous generation can become.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS!!
I wish I could marry a guy like the Dick Francis character. They never could find an actor to portray him, they needed someone who conveyed kindness, intelligence, capability and strength. Someone to take care of you. Someone you could depend on. This had to be apparent in his face, because these characters aren't big chatterboxes.
This was a good story and a good mystery, and I learned a lot about the large animal vet practice. This might have been the book that I learned about fugu from. I have read it at least two times before.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Any Dick Francis.

[Christian West · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Foreign Office agent (I think that either means diplomat, diplomatic worker, or some kind of non-spy spy) returns to the village he grew up in and become embroiled in a mystery at a veterinary surgery where horses keep dying.

Although not a perfect book, it was great fun. There's a few characters who don't seem to have a reason for being in the book (apart from adding to the word count), but I loved it all. Fast paced and I didn't see the end coming.

Read as part of my 50 horse books to read in 2018 challenge.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Darwin is a diplomat who gets mixed up in a series of equine deaths centering on a vet's practice near Cheltenham racecourse while on leave between postings.

I used to like Dick Francis's books when I was younger, and this was something of a comfort read, with plenty of familiar character types. He (or more likely his wife, who did most of the research and some editing) made his books different by introducing new settings and main characters, and this one was interesting for the background on both vets and diplomats. There's a bit of romance in the story too.

[Jack Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of the three I've read this week, with an interestingly complex story about vets and horses dying unexpectedly, with a good cast of supporting characters, plenty of suspects, and a story where the protagonist's past plays an unexpected role.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use Dick Francis books as a break between more serious reads, but really, I should be paying more attention. He's a master of plot and pacing.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am glad I finally got my hands on a couple of Dick Francis novels.
So far, with the two I've read, these are not your typical crime/suspense novels. They read more like literary fiction than a crime novel.
I didn't like this one as well as Decider, but I did enjoy it. Like Decider, it was easy to read and for the most part the characters were developed and layered. I had fun learning about Vet practices and some of the medications used in veterinary medicine. I see-sawed back and forth about who I thought was the culprit, but never had all things lined up before the baddy was revealed. A satisfying ending to tie up any loose ends was, as always, appreciated.

I'll be reading more Dick Francis novels just as soon as I can get my hands on them.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not loads to say about this one. It's a good enough read but not the full 5 stars. Mainly it suffers from a slightly stilted opening leading into mystery that just seems too fractured and impossible to really believe in. But on the other hand we don't get bogged down by much in the way of poorly aged political or social commentary. Worth a read but the wrap-up just isn't quite satisfying enough.

[Pamela Gleeson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, Dick Francis wrote a jolly good book.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know my reading habits at all, you know that I read Dick Francis novels. Many of them I read as they came out in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. This year, so far, beginning in March, I've read Bonecrack, Smokescreen, In the Frame, Risk, The Danger, Forfeit, Rat Race, High Stakes, Trial Run, Whip Hand, Twice Shy, Break In, Reflex, Bolt, Hot Money, The Edge, and Comeback. That's seventeen mystery novels by the late, great Dick Francis, who was, many years ago, the Queen Mother's jockey.

Addictive? Certainly not, but very enjoyable and worth reading and re-reading. Mostly, I find, I re-read them after and interval of fifteen or twenty years, which is long enough for the details to seem fresh, even if the general scene is a familiar one.

Comeback, my seventeenth, and probably last, Dick Francis novel of 2023, is one of the good ones. The lead character, Peter Darwin, is a British Foreign Service officer, back in England for the first time in twenty years or so. Due to a nice sort of "meet cute" routine in Miami, he ends up in Cheltenham looking after an older couple who need looking after. Through them, he meets their daughter Belinda and Belinda's fiancé, Ken McClure. Ken is a veterinarian, Belinda a veterinary nurse, and horses have started dying of unknown causes in their hospital.

The mystery here is layered and intricate. As with many good mysteries, the source of the problem is years in the past. Thus, the hiatus in Peter's knowledge of the neighborhood where he lived as a boy is less important than the memories he has of the players. We are introduced to a community of horse people, long-time acquaintances, at various times business associates, lovers, enemies, and partners in crime. Peter, in his nice, unassuming way, helps Ken to deal with the problems of the practice, and finds himself more and more involved in the mysteries.

Excellent entertainment. A fine writer at the height of his powers.

[Tracy Crawford · Rating 2 out of 5]

What started off with some endearing wit from English diplomat Peter Darwin turned into a slog about dying horses in a veterinary practice. Went on too long with little happening.

[Rhonda Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another classic Dick Francis mystery, and it had plenty of intrigue and excitement. In this one, the main character, Peter Darwin, is a diplomat on leave, visiting the town he grew up in. He ends up getting sucked into the problems at the veterinary clinic where racehorses have been dying mysteriously.

I really enjoyed the mystery plot, and it got me in the end - I hadn't figured out who was behind it all. The characters were decent, although there were a few "old boys" things I didn't really like. They weren't enough to turn me away from the story, though. Overall, it was a solid Francis mystery.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. Peter Darwin in a diplomat recently posted back home to England after several years in Japan. He makes the acquaintance of some fellow Brits who are mugged.They are both pretty shaken and are glad for his help when they make it to England. But the troubles are only beginning. Darwin is soon involved in sorting out some malicious mischief at a vet's surgery. I liked this one a lot.

[Contrarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another fun entry in the Francis series. I especially enjoyed this one because it centers around a mystery at a veterinary clinic. As usual, the Francis team obviously did a lot of careful research on the subject before writing the book; in general, their understanding of the topic shows impressively throughout the book.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main character here works for the foreign office and on a break gets caught up in helping solve a mystery of dying horses at a veterinary clinic. I really liked the story and it took me a long time to guess the ultimate person responsible for the dying horses. I feel like the foreign service thing either should have been more a part of the plot or less, but other than that a good read.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the greatest Dick Francis I’ve ever read, but far from the worst. I really liked the detailed descriptions of horse veterinary procedures and accurate representations of the effects of various toxins. DF really did his homework. And the main character, Peter Darwin, was engaging and had a certain depth with his diplomatic handling of the situation at hand.