Dick Francis: Driving Force (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
Ex-jockey Freddie Croft now runs a fleet of vehicles which transport racehorses across the British Isles and Europe. But when two of his drivers pick up a hitchhiker who ends up dead, Freddie's got a big problem.

First, it quickly becomes apparent that the hitcher wasn't quite what he seemed.

And second, Freddie finds that his horse boxes might just be being used for moving something a lot less legal than horses.

Now he must figure out what is going on before the police, and before whoever is doing it cottons on and tries to stop him - permanently...

Packed with intrigue and hair-raising suspense, Driving Force is just one of the many blockbuster thrillers from legendary crime writer Dick Francis.

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Penguin, ISBN: 9781405916875 (September, 2014), 448 p., £7.99.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
New York Times bestselling Grand Master of Crime Fiction
Jockey Freddie Croft discovers a high-stakes conspiracy that exposes the seedy underside of horse-racing-and faces deadlier odds of survival than in any steeplechase run.

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Berkley Books, ISBN: 9780425233184 (January, 2010), 336 p., $7.99.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
Transporting racehorses to the course is big business for ex-jockey Freddie Croft. He runs his fleet of vans and their drivers with tight reins, strict security and everything on the up-and-up. But one a driver breaks a cardinal rule - never pick up a hitchhiker - and the results are fatal... for the hitchhiker.

A corpse is not only bad for business, it's also bad for Freddie's long-term survival. For the corpse's trail leads to corpse number two - and a strange nighttime stalkers and unseen conspirators who are weaving a web of deceit and danger that Freddie might never escape...

"Delightful... A tense, fast-paced new mystery... boasting a resolute, resourceful, and modest hero and lots of racetrack characters and color." San Francisco Chronicle

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Fawcett Books, ISBN: 0449221393 (February, 1994), 367 p., $5.99.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (UK 1993)

From the Publisher:
Jockey Freddie Croft thought he'd left the perils behind him when he retired from the jump game. These days he was happy to transport horses from their stables to the races. Until one of his drivers picked up an unlicensed passenger. And brought him back dead.

The corpse on the doorstep was Freddie's unwelcome introduction to the shadowy, big-money conspiracy which muscled into his business and started to threaten his life. But Freddie was a fighter, and winning was in his blood...

First identify the danger. Then beat them out of sight...

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Pan Books, ISBN: 0330329510 (December, 1993), 298 p., £4.99.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (UK 1993)

From the Publisher:
When one of his drivers returns to the base with a dead hitchhiker in the horsebox, retired steeplechase jockey Freddie Croft is swept into a complicated conspiracy where he has to fight to save not just his business but his very life.

Punching at shifting shadows, trying to outwit adversaries whose existence he only suspects, not knowing what to believe or whom to trust, Freddie Croft is faced with dangers very different from the old familiar perils of jump racing, and he is forced to find in himself a different sort of courage.

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Michael Joseph, ISBN: 0718100387 (January, 1993), 276 p., £8.99.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
It's life and death neck-and-neck in the stretch in this, Dick Francis's thirtyfirst horseracing thriller.
Young ex-jockey Freddie Croft owns a profitable fleet of horse vans that convey runners to the course. A man who has few illusions about racing's smarmier aspects, Freddie is a stickler for security. But even he is startled by the violence that erupts when a hard, fast rule is broken: Never pick up a hitchhiker.

In what will be the first of many ironies, the passenger - not the driver - turns up dead. And if one corpse is bad for business, what happens next could well be fatal: Freddie is swept unknowingly into the vortex of a malign conspiracy in which appearances deceive and the cost of being duped is murderously high. Tilting at the shifting shadows cast by his elusive adversaries, he must summon up extraordinary guile and courage to protect his enterprise - and save his life.

Driving Force is Dick Francis at his most tantalizingly complex and dramatically propulsive - the kind of top-drawer suspense no aficionado can resist.

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399137769 (October, 1992), 318 p., $21.95.

Dick Francis: Driving Force (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
At thirty-five, Freddie Croft has retired as a steeplechase jockey and now runs a fleet of motor horseboxes transporting runners from their stables to the races, or brood mares to the stud farms. One of the hard and fast rules for all his drivers is never to pick up a hitchhiker, but of course one day they do, and by the time they reach base the passenger is dead.

This unwelcome corpse on his doorstep sweeps Freddie into a complicated conspiracy where little is as it seems, and where, like it or not, he has to fight to save not just his business but his very life.

Organised, intelligent and determined he may be, but punching at shifting shadows, trying to outwit adversaries whose existence he only suspects, not knowing what to believe or whom to trust, these intangibles take him into dangers very different from the old familiar perils of jump racing, and force him to search for unexpected answers.

Like each of his bestselling thrillers, Driving Force will excite and entertain readers throughout the world and in countless languages. As The Times said of him: "He is a writer of champion class."

Dick Francis: Driving Force. Michael Joseph, ISBN: 0718134826 (September, 1992), 276 p., £14.99.