Since 1997

About this site

DickFrancisBooks.com has been a gathering place for readers of the Dick Francis racing mysteries since 27 January 1997. It began as an online discussion group and mailing list, grew a guestbook that 903 readers signed, and has been held by the same owner continuously.

Dick Francis was a champion steeplechase jockey before he was a novelist. He rode for the Queen Mother, and after retiring from racing wrote 42 books, most of them thrillers set in and around British racing. He won the Edgar Award for Best Novel three times, took the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, and was appointed CBE in 2000.

Dick Francis died on 14 February 2010, aged 89. Every comment in this guestbook was written while he was alive, and nearly 400 of them during the six years after Shattered when no new book appeared and readers had no way of knowing another would.

His son Felix, who had collaborated with him on the later novels, has continued the series. The Chase is the newest, published 24 September 2026.

The site you are reading replaced a version that had stood, essentially unchanged, since October 2008. That original has not been thrown away. It is preserved exactly as it was, down to the animated diamonds and the table layout, and you are welcome to go and look at it.

Nostalgic view Visit the 2008 site Preserved exactly as it stood

Photographs of Ascot and Lambourn by Chris Jones. The guestbook belongs to the 903 readers who wrote in it. This is an independent site run by readers, and is not affiliated with the author’s estate or his publishers.