There seem to be several opinions about why horse racing has been called a blood sport. One definition I found submitted that it was because of the term “bloodstock”—the selective aristocratic breeding of thoroughbreds from pure bloodlines. But most historical definitions cite the concept of bloodshed involved in sporting events such as bull- and bear-baiting and cock fighting. In recent times, the definition has been expanded to also include the intense physical toll on the horses, track safety issues, and the treatment of retired race horses.

These are the putative meanings behind the title of Blood Sport by Dick Francis but, ever a one to find a clever double entendre, the plot turns the pursuit of horse thieves into a blood sport as well, since they are not inclined to be either found out or deprived of their ill-gotten gains.

Gene Hawkins is a “civil servant” from an unnamed department whose job seems to consist of screening people for highly sensitive work. It is several times implied that this job includes forays out of the office for some high-risk hijinks as well. Gene is good at his job—he is intelligent, innovative, introverted and, at the moment, clinically depressed after a failed relationship brings home to him how pointless much of his life is turning out to be. He is confronting the challenge of how to fill three weeks of vacation time when his boss (possibly fearing that he will succumb further to his depression) asks him to take on a special project.

Dave Teller is a millionaire American who purchased an expensive and prestigious racing stallion with plans to breed future winners for the track, only to have the horse go missing. Weeks after it escaped its paddock, the insurance company and Gene’s boss are both thinking this might have been a theft rather than an accident, especially because two other horses (one of whom was also partially owned by Teller through a syndicate) went missing in a strikingly similar way.

Gene takes the case and pursues people and clues from New York to Wyoming, California, and Arizona. Although he was initially hired to find the latest missing horse, he eventually has his eye on locating the other two as well, and goes about all of it in a clever, understated way that holds your attention from beginning to end.

This was an unusual—and somewhat dark—story from Dick Francis in a few ways: First, it took place primarily in America and, while it was tangentially about horse-racing, had none of the usual scenes from the track and the breeders’ farms. Second, the protagonist is emotionally in a bad place. Francis has gone there before (as when Sid Halley, champion jockey, loses his hand in a terrible accident in Odds Against), but never has that mood suffused a book as it did this one. And finally, while there has been some form of violence present, usually perpetrated by a central villainous character, in most of Francis’s somewhat formula stories, it has rarely felt as personal as it does here. Still, this was a solid mystery with an ingenious plot that was just sufficiently convoluted to keep me reading. I’m glad I didn’t miss this one.