Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer, and former steeplechase jockey, whose novels centre on horse racing in England. He was England's champion jockey in 1954, and in 1957 he was a jockey for the Queen Mother's horse Devon Loch in the Grand National. But the horse stumbled in the last stretch and was unable to recover. After this great disappointment, Francis retired from his career as a steeplechase jockey. A publisher convinced Francis to write his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, while he was still well known. The book was commercially successful and led him to write racing articles for the London Sunday Express for the next sixteen years. An admirer of the popularity of mystery novels, Francis always wanted to write one himself. When Francis's wife became worried about the state of their finances, she finally convinced him to try. He wrote Dead Cert which was accepted by a publisher and became a bestseller. Two years later he wrote Nerve and has continued at a pace of one novel per year since then. In Comeback, Peter Darwin, a diplomat with the British Foreign Office who is still in his thirties, decides to vacation in Miami after leaving his post in Tokyo, Japan. Darwin comes to the rescue of an English couple who are being robbed. Out of concern for their well-being and taking the opportunity to visit his childhood district, Darwin accompanies his new friends to the town of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. You can listen online to free English audiobook “Comeback” by Dick Francis on our website.
