There seems to be no limit, fortunately, to Mr. Francis' ability to invent skulduggery about steeplechasing. He is the best thriller writer going, with the conventional merits of uproar and bloodshed, plus an attention to practical detail and a shrewd understanding of social maneuver that pull his stories out of that never-never land in which crime novels tend to wander. The origin of all this can be detected in his autobiography, The Sport of Queens…. The book tells a great deal about horses and racing, offers pleasantly malicious advice to inexperienced persons proposing to meddle with either, and reveals, more or less backhandedly, that the author has always liked to do a job right.

Phoebe-Lou Adams, "Short Reviews: 'Forfeit'," in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1969, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass.; reprinted with permission), Vol. 223, No. 3, March, 1969, p. 154.

Dick Francis 1920– Photograph © Mary Francis