At the annual party celebrating the end of a successful Flat season, everything is running well to form - until a runaway horsebox ploughs into the marquee, causing terrible death and destruction. Eight people lie dead in a tangle of tent poles and canvas, among them race horse and restaurant owner Larry Trent.
Sole witness to the tragedy, wine merchant Tony Beach, presumes it is just one of those terrible accidents. A widower of six months who is still mourning the loss of his wife, he is no strangeer to tragedy. But when Seargent Ridger of the Thamse Valley Police asks him to use his professional expertise to help them investigate an alcohol swindle at Trent's restaurant, the Silver Moondance, he begins to wonder.
Then the mysterious Gerard McGregor, a man purporting to be a "business consultant" als starts asking questions about substandard whisky, and connections start to click into place.
When a body is discovered at the Silver Moondance, its head encased in plaster of Paris, a deadly pattern begins to emerge - and Tony Beach finds himself in ever greater danger...

Good story, well told as a role play with just the right action, thrill and length. One of the best Dick Francis I have heard so far.

returned to owner