Dead Cert.

FRANCIS, Dick.

Item Number: 104758

London: Michael Joseph, 1962.

First edition of the author’s first novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the month of publication, “Bill Organ, my very best wishes Dick Francis January 1962.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light wear. Jacket design by Trevor Denning. A very nice example of an uncommon book, especially signed and inscribed in the month of publication.

"A chance encounter with a literary agent led to his writing The Sport of Queens, published the year after he retired. Emboldened by its success (and further motivated by his paltry wages as a journalist), he began writing Dead Cert. Drawing on his experiences as a jockey and his intimate knowledge of the racetrack crowd — from aristocratic owners to Cockney stable boys — the novel contained all the elements that readers would come to relish from a Dick Francis thriller. There was the pounding excitement of a race, the aura of the gentry at play, the sweaty smells from the stables out back, an appreciation for the regal beauty and unique personality of a thoroughbred — and enough sadistic violence to man and beast to satisfy the bloodthirsty" (The New York Times). "Right from the start, with Dead Cert in 1962, the Dick Francis thriller showed a mastery of lean, witty genre prose reminiscent -- sometimes to the point of comic parody -- of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It was an American style that many clever people in England had attempted to reproduce without much success, and it was a wonder how a barely educated former jump jockey was able to do the trick with such effortless ease" (The Guardian). Dead Cert was featured in the 2007 book 100 Must-Read Crime Novels and was filmed by Tony Richardson in 1974.