Odds against (Penguin Books)

Ex-champion steeplechase jockey Sid Haley is now a sleuth. As the story opens he has just been shot in the stomach during the course of his duties as a private investigator, working - or rather, idling - in a firm which keeps him employed, thanks tothe old boy network. Convalescing with indecent and painful haste, Sid finds the pace growing steadily hotter as he investigates the cunningly contrived decline of a racecourse, and comes to close and spine-chilling grips with the crooks responsible.