Dick Francis, Felix Francis Books

Dick Francis has written forty-one novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), his autobiography (The Sport of Queens) and the biography of Lester Piggott. He is rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world. He has received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association’s Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre. The Mystery Writers of America have given him three Edgar Allen Poe awards for the best novel of the year, and in 1996 made him a Grand Master for a lifetime’s achievement. He was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2000.

Felix Francis is the younger of Dick Francis’s two sons. Having spent seventeen years teaching A-level Physics, he took on the role of managing his father’s affairs in 1991. Over the last forty years, Felix has assisted with the research of many of the Dick Francis novels, not least Twice Shy, which drew on Felix’s experiences both as a Physics teacher and as a marksman, Shattered and Under Orders. With the publication of Dead Heat Felix took on a more significant role in the writing - Silks is the second novel of this father-and-son collaboration.