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BOOK REVIEW Felix Francis Shows No Signs Of Reining In His latest book, Refusal, delivers everything you expect from a Dick Francis mystery. By BETH RASIN who'd prefer he not probe too closely. We caught up with Felix from his Oxfordshire home to learn more about Refusal, the Francis family's literary legacy, and what's coming up next. Your first book, Under Orders, appeared in 2006. How did you come to take over your father's byline? It all happened by accident. My father's agent said to me one day, "We have a problem: No one is reading the backlist of stories because we haven't had a new book." This was in 2005. He wanted permission to ask an established crime writer to write in [my father's] name, and I said, "Before you ask anyone else, I'd like to have a go." My dad was not keen on resurrecting [the books]. He was 85. I said, "We'll make it a Sid Halley book," and I already had a title. He read it and approved. After five chapters, we sent it to the publishers and were excited. Your father was a champion jockey. Are you a horseman? I rode as child and had ponies, but I stopped riding when I was 14. I had hip trouble and spent 5½ months lying in a hospital because my hip collapsed on me; a hormone problem meant my bones grew rapidly and didn't harden properly. I have restricted movement in my left hip even now. I've managed to make way through the mountains and jungles of Borneo and rain forests but am not able to ride. I still own a horse in a syndicate—something "The character has to go on a journey, to be a different person at the end than at the beginning. The characters are the sort of people readers would like to be. " 88 W INTER 2013 U N TAC K E D PHOTOS COURTESY FELIX FRANCIS Dick Francis fans mourned the author's passing in 2010, but devotees of his 39 mysteries can still read on under titles by his son, Felix Francis, who's continuing the line of bestsellers set in the thick of British horse racing. If you enjoy the fast pace and suspense of a Francis novel, you won't be disappointed in Felix's eighth one, Refusal, released this fall. It's narrated by Sid Halley, who first appeared in 1965 in Odds Against, reappeared in Whip Hand (1979), then came back again in Come To Grief (1995) and Under Orders (2006). In Refusal, he's older and wiser and retired from both racing and investigation. But when circumstances thrust him back into detective work against his will, he has more to lose this time: As one of the oldest main characters in a Francis book, Sid, whose hand is shattered in a racing accident in Odds Against, is married and now has a daughter. He has to get to the bottom of what appears to be a race-fixing scheme while protecting his family from the people

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