Henry also has a secret. Every Sunday he disappears and no one knows where he goes or what he does. Henry Grey is an earl's son,but he doesn't want a title.He'd rather take a dirty and dangerous job as a groom,transporting horses by air,much to the chagrin of his family. It takes a little while for the plot to get going, but soon Henry clues in: there's something Yardman Transport is doing that isn't on the up-and-up. And there's the fact that his predecessors and coworkers keep going missing...

Only soon enough he noticed that things did not always go smoothly. He was able to get the job when a former groom never showed up for a return flight from Italy. Henry didn't think much about it at the time, but he also never quite forgot about that disappearance either. What had happened to keep the man from coming home? And what will happen to Henry when he gets closer to figuring everything out? He doesn't like book tours. He is not one for revelations, major life changes, and intimacies with strange interviewers, and he says he gets tired of answering the same questions again and again. But he soon discovers that something else is going on in the guise of transporting horses,in his new job.He confronts the culprit,who confesses,but is unfazed. There are several series woven into the fabric of Francis's work: notably the Sid Halley and Kit Fielding series. We generally try to read at least one chapter per Book Day, and that is what we did this time too. Except that Thursday we read chapters 15 and 16 both, because they were fairly short. And then today we decided we just had to finish both chapters 17 and 18 and get to the end of the story, because let me tell you, these last four chapters were un-put-downable. Definitely the most dramatic and exciting of the whole book! I got carried away: I was reading way too fast. I would never be able to read professionally, I get too caught up in the story!

Clippinger, Don (30 March 1983). "Drive To Save Aintree Nears Goal". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved 28 April 2013. Or, as independently wealthy Tor Kelsey says in The Edge, explaining why he works for a minuscule salary: "I work... because I like it, I'm not all that bad at what I do, really, and it's useful, and I'm not terribly good at twiddling my thumbs." [29] Collaboration [ edit ] Neil Griffon, formerly antique dealer, then business consultant, acting as temporary trainer whilst his father is hospitalised

I liked the way Henry matures and learns to open himself up to others; by the end he is a changed man. The plot is overly complicated and almost doesn't work, but the final chapters were so believably terrifying that I found my heart pounding right up to the Flying Finish. The book's publication takes place in England in September. American publication in past years has been in February, although his next book, Straight, is set to be published in November. Once the manuscript is out of his hands, he takes the summer off, while percolating the plot of his next book. Research on the next book begins in late summer and continues through the autumn, while he's gearing up for his promotional tour for the just-published book. Come January, he sits down to write again.

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He shuns the lecture circuit. He'd prefer to let his novels and his sales volume speak for themselves... And though he doesn't love the act of writing [and] could easily retire, he finds himself planning his new book as each summer ends. According to journalist Mary Amoroso, "Mary does much of the research: She went so far as to learn to fly a plane for Flying Finish. She also edits his manuscripts and serves as a sounding board for plot line and character development. Says Francis, 'At least the research keeps her from going out shopping.'" [29] Francis told interviewers Jean Swanson and Dean James, Blind Chance" (first appeared as "Twenty-one Good Men and True" in Verdict of Thirteen: A Detection Club Anthology, 1979) According to a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, Francis "writes believable fairy tales for adults—ones in which the actors are better than we are but are believable enough to make us wonder if indeed we could not one day manage to emulate them." [28] Writing routine [ edit ] Francis was elected in 1999 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [34] Adaptations [ edit ] Film and television [ edit ]