SOURCE: "Surviving the English Countryside," in The New York Times Book Review, October 14, 1990, p. 45.

In the following review, Cahill lauds Francis's Longshot as a satisfying, read-at-one-sitting novel.

They're calling for passengers to board the plane to Tonga and I find that I'm unprepared. I need a book. Something light and entertaining and informative and plot driven. Ah, but there's always Dick Francis at the newsstand, several dozen of him, staring out from the best seller rack. I know that the book will be a mystery, probably a murder mystery, and that it will be set against a racing background. After all, Mr. Francis, once a champion jockey in Britain, has written a string of best selling mysteries, most of which check in regularly at the track.

I'm about as interested in horse racing as I am in dentistry—which is to say not at all. Still, experience has...