Come to Grief by Dick Francis

Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition

First published: 1995

Type of work: Novel

The Work

The title Come to Grief sums up what happens throughout the book, as disease, injury, and negative publicity bring humans and animals to grief. The dominant grief is perpetrated by a serial mutilator, who chops off the forefeet of valuable thoroughbred horses, much beloved of owners but uninsured, and that of the pony of an impressionable child. The novel brings back champion jockey turned private investigator Sid Halley, who appeared in Odds Against (1965) and Whip Hand (1979), and who sees in these injuries a mirror image of his own physical loss of a forearm, hacked off by a sadistic fiend. The nightmare he faces—the loss of his good hand—proves a near reality when his longtime friend, Ellis Quint, in the grip of his criminal obsession, sadistically assaults Halley with the weapon he had used on defenseless horses.

Quint has won British hearts with his fearless rides as a jockey and with the heartwarming stories he creates as a television host (including a particularly moving piece on a child with leukemia, whose pony is one of the victims), yet his deeds bring his disbelieving family to grief. Quint’s father mutilates a horse to provide his son an alibi and then tries to kill Halley; his mother commits suicide. The gentlemanly, kindly facade Quint projects hides a lust for power and for blood, but while Halley struggles to expose Quint’s dark side, he must deal with character assassination by a local newspaper, rejection by the racing community, and public opinion that turns even those he seeks to help against him. Those who fall under Quint’s influence come to grief as well, with Owen Yorkshire giving vent to a murderous temper, and Lord Tilepit discovering that he has colluded with a murderer.

Winner of the Silver Dagger Award from Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association, Come to Grief provides a satisfying study of the slogging footwork of detection, the interviewing of witnesses and checking of alibis, but it is also a powerful psychological study of friendship, what leads to it, and the difficulty of walking away from it. Halley struggles with his perceptions; his instincts tell him that his friend, Quint, shows up at the crime scene or is connected to the crime scene too many times for it to be coincidence, and yet Quint is a former jockey like himself, someone Halley thinks he understands as deeply as he understands himself. When the evidence builds until it is irrefutable in his mind and he must turn over his discoveries to the police, Halley grieves for the loss of his friend. At the end, he understands the dark forces that drive Quint and sees behind the madness and corruption some glimmers of the man he once held in such high esteem: Quint could have left Halley armless, and he pulled back from the deed; Quint could have let his father kill Halley, but he killed his father instead. Thus, Halley grieves for what has been lost—the friendship, the bright potential, and the lingering comradeship—despite the grave perils threatened.

Bibliography

Davis, J. Madison. Dick Francis. Boston: Twayne, 1989.

Forbes, Steve. “Saddling up Another Equine Mystery.” Forbes 156, no. 11 (November 6, 1995): 24.

Fuller, Bryony. Dick Francis: Steeplechase Jockey. London: Joseph, 1994.

Guttman, Robert J. “Dick Francis.” Europe 361 (November, 1996): 18-21.

Honan, Corinna. “Dick’s Greatest Whodunit.” Daily Mail, September 1, 2007, p. 1.

Lord, Graham. Dick Francis: A Racing Life. London: Little Brown, 1999.

Reed, J. D. Review of Come to Grief, by Dick Francis. People Weekly 44, no. 18 (October 30, 1995): 34.

“Who Done It?” People Weekly 52 (November 22, 1999): 202.