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BOOK REVIEW Mother asked if I could help my father with paperwork and the U.S. tax system. I said, "I'll give you a hand; it can't be that hard." Silly thing to say; it was very hard. One day I said to him, in 1990, "They're changing the education system in England from simple exams to lots of coursework assessments. I'm head of the science department and have to do all this; I can't go on doing what I'm doing for you. You need a manager." He asked if I'd work for him and offered to pay me twice what I was making. It was the best decision I ever made. I was his manager for 14 years, for a long time before I wrote his books. It wasn't that I suddenly gave up teaching and started writing—there were 14 years in between. How much involvement did you have in his novels earlier in his career? I designed the bomb that blew up an airplane by remote control in [my father's book] Rat Race in 1970, when I was 17 and a physics student. I wrote the computer program in Twice Shy, which was cutting edge at the time but now looks quite dated. I did a lot of the meteorology in Second Wind and did lot of the ending of Shattered. One of my kids was reading one of these books and asked me, "Dad, what is a cassette tape?" I thought, "Oh my God, life has moved on." I did lot of research for [my father]; there even was a character that was a physics teacher in one of books, Twice Shy, which is the only book with two narrators. My brother is a racehorse transport man, and there was one of those in Driving Force. My uncle is a wine importer; his knowledge was delved into for Proof. A dear friend who was a photographer was very much used in Reflex. The whole family's business acumen and knowledge has been used for all sorts of research. My mother used to call it a cottage industry without a cottage. Does your family help with your novels? My two sons read them, and I'm glad they think they're quite good. My wife, Debbie, reads it out loud to me so I can hear what it sounds like. I'm a great believer in rhythm of sentences. She's the only person allowed to read my books before they're submitted to my editor. There are rumors that your mother, Mary, was heavily involved in the writing of your father's books. How much truth is there to that? Ah, the best kept secret in publishing! My mother [who died in 2000] was a great believer in the rhythm of sentences. My father was the ideas man, and together they were responsible for the books. It was both of them, not Mary or Dick; they did them together. Dad always wanted her name on the cover too, and she never wanted it. But my father was always referred to as Richard in our family. I used to think they were Mary and Richard separately, and together they were Dick Francis. She taught me, as well. She's a great believer that reading a book should be easy, a delight. Some say that if it's easy reading, it can't be literature, but I work very hard at making them easy reading. I believe words should slide off the page like cream off a spoon, not get stuck in your throat like barbed wire. Good literature doesn't have to be hard work. People feel you can't be both popular and literary; the two are incompatible. I disagree. Why did you want to continue your father's brand? Do you have any different types of stories or novels you'd like to do someday? My father once said to his publisher, "If I wrote something that didn't have horses in it, would you still publish it?" They said, "Of course we would, but we'd rather you didn't." They'd love me to continue writing in the same vein and subject matter. You don't have to know one end of a horse from another to read one of these books, even though you might learn about [them] on the way, and you'll still love the books. I'm not writing exclusively for horsey or racing people. "People like to believe racing has a shady side, though it has less of a shady side than I tend to give it. A lot of effort goes into keeping it clean." 90 W INTER 2013 U N TAC K E D

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