Blood Sport - Dick Francis

If you’ve got a Dick Francis two-story omnibus, then you might as well read both the stories at one go.
Blood Sport, as far as Dick Francis stories go, had quite a convoluted plot. And for the first time amongst the four books of his that I have read, I felt at a loss as the racing terminologies started raining. And that did have quite a ruining effect for me despite the story itself being quite fast paced.
The hero, Gene Hawkins, is a ‘civil servant’. The implications of the job title and what he really does for a living are never really clarified. That aspect of Gene hangs like a constant mystery throughout the book, which really adds a lot of appeal to the character. Is he an assassin? A spy? Espionage agent? Police? It’s anyone’s guess. His talents, though not up at par with, say, Jason Bourne, are still pretty damn good at uncovering truths. But his objective is not, as he says, to punish, but to prevent. I wish Gene wasn’t as suicidal however. But Dick Francis does a splendid job of imposing a suicidal trait on such a strong and determined character. And when you read the story you really do realize how the internal struggle of Gene impacts the direction of the path he takes, and the flow of the story. Dick Francis gets down to being poignant. Can’t say I expected it from a writer of horse racing thrillers. But he does a good job at it.
So Gene, given he is some sort of a spy or something, is asked by his employer, Mr. Keeble to look for Dave Teller’s missing horses. He lands in America, in a conquest to find Chrysallis after a murder attempt on Dave Teller, which probably prompted Gene to take the assignment up. Gene, with his half thoughts of killing himself, takes it up with a shrug as one more thing to keep him from killing himself, probably thinking that if he could live and save a life, it might just be worth it.
Chrysallis is the third world class stallions to be stolen in a fairly short space of time, the other two being Alyx and Showman. And Gene, as he retrieves Chrysallis, unearths a shocking and an elaborate fraud, which would shake up the world racing community and risks his as much as his friend’s lives. It’s good that he carries a lugger around in an under-arm holster. You never know when you’d need it. Especially in Gene’s line of work!