Straight by Dick Francis

3 April.

This was the next one on the shelf, and I didn't remember anything about it. I did get a bit of a shock when I found the bookmark that I had left in it from earlier reading. It was a cinquecento lire note. Perhaps the twenty-five intervening years accounts for my lapse of memory. It came out in '89, which was the year we returned to the states. Also, on this one I hit the wall. I have been steadfastly reading them on paper, since they are on the shelf. But this one was hard to manage with yellowed paper and small print - so I caved and bought it for my kindle. It was almost like the time I became fascinated by an excerpt from Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. I ran to the library and checked out the complete work and read and read - and finally became so frustrated because the reading was difficult and taking more time and effort than I had hoped that I ran back to the library and checked out an English translation and read them side by side. There are only a few more Francis books on the shelf and I would have to go to electronic form anyway, so ... . Isn't rationalization great?

I really don't think I ever read it. His plots are becoming ever more complex. There are at least three subplots in simultaneous action. Derek Franklin is a steeplechase jockey. As the book opens, his brother, Greville, has been injured in an accident and dies. Greville is some twenty years Derek's senior and since neither is married, their two sisters have left England for Japan and Australia, and their parents are dead, they essentially have no other family. They are friendly, get together from time to time, but are not particularly close. Still, Greville has named Derek his next of kin, executor, and sole heir.

The main theme is Derek's growing knowledge of and affection for his much older brother as his sifts through his life and puts more and more of the bits together. Greville is very much a presence in the story. As for mysteries - there is the matter of the missing diamonds (Greville was a dealer in semi-precious stones), there is the drug lord trying to get a gaming license, and what is the deal with the trainer of Greville's race horses? And most particularly - who is trying to kill Derek? and did these persons unknown also kill Greville? And then there is Greville's most secret mistress . . .

As for the title, references float through the entire book and it seems to me to be the most nuanced of all Francis's titles so far. In Greville's diary, he had several quotations about honesty as opposed to crookedness. One of Derek's friends calls him "straight" because he hasn't ever experimented with drugs. And all through, Derek feels inadequate as he discovers more and more about the standards that his brother set for himself: "May I deal with honour. May I act with courage. May I achieve humility."