Publisher's Weekly Review
With his 40th novel in as many years, grand master Dick Francis isn't up to his usual high standards, but fans know that even a subpar Francis is in the 95th percentile. Here the typical Francis hero is a young Englishman of a vanishing breed: smart, self-effacing although very good at his job, polite and thoroughly decent. Perry Stuart is a well-known TV weatherman for the BBC who was orphaned as a child and raised by his beloved, now crippled grandmother, who remains tartly sensible ("If you can't fix it, think about something else"). Joining fellow BBC weatherman Kris Ironside on a flying jaunt into the eye of a Caribbean hurricane, Perry survives when the plane crashes and washes up on a tiny, apparently abandoned island where the houses were destroyed by the hurricane. In a hut, he stumbles across a safe containing a mysterious file folder whose contents he cannot decipher. After a crew wearing radiation-protection suits arrive by air to rescue him, Perry's troubles are only beginning, as he slowly becomes aware of a sinister scheme in which well-off people are brokering enriched uranium to foreign nogoodniks. Among the cast are mushroom mogul Robin Darcy and his flashy American wife, two old SIS spooksÄthink an aging James Bond and a tottery MÄand a beautiful nurse who is Perry's circumspect love interest. Perry continues to encounter danger: the sabotage of another plane he's on, threats by a muscle-bound thug in Grand Cayman. Francis's writing is smooth and intelligent, moving the reader right along, but the end of the book is more than a tad far-fetched. Still, ex-RAF pilot and champion steeplechaser Francis knows his stuffÄand of course race courses figure in the plot. BOMC main selection; Audio Books main selection; 3-city author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Francis celebrates his 40th horses-plus suspenser by taking his hero on a vacation in the Caribbean'into the eye of a hurricane that will lead him to still deeper mysteries. Perry Stuart doesn't just read the weather report for the BBC; he's a meteorologist and Ph.D. physicist whose predictions are followed religiously by (of course) racehorse owners all over England. But Caspar Harvey is in no position to take advantage of Perry's clear-and-fast forecast for an upcoming race date; his prize filly's come down with a mysterious ailment. Nothing daunted despite his beloved grandmother's heebie-jeebies, Perry takes off with his friend and colleague Kris Ironside, a daredevil amateur pilot, for Grand Cayman, where Harvey's friend, American mushroom grower Robin Darcy, has bought an airplane Kris can borrow to satisfy a long-held dream: flying through Category-3 Hurricane Odin. Francis (Field of Thirteen, 1998, etc.) does a masterly job building portents of doom through the first third of this adventure, and no one but Perry will be surprised when the flight maroons him back on Trox Island, a tiny scrap of land he'd explored briefly with Kris on Robin's behalf as the price of borrowing the aircraft. But with Perry's rescue from the island, the mode of the story shifts abruptly from suspense to mystery, as threats to life and limb give way to a series of riddles. What errand did Robin want Kris to run on the island? What's the meaning of the coded figures Perry found inside a locked safe during his stay? What claims does Robin's Unified Trading Company (whose members seem to include virtually every member of the small cast) have on the island? Why is Perry, days after his rescue, now taking sick? And what does his illness have to do with the malady that sidelined that filly? Urgent questions, all of them, answered with of all Francis's usual unobtrusive technical mastery'even if fans looking for the thrills he more often provides think the action here trails off long before the finish line. (Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection)
Booklist Review
In his fortieth novel, Francis introduces a decidedly unhorsey hero, BBC meteorologist Perry Stuart, who, with his best friend Kris, an amateur pilot, has long dreamed of flying through the eye of a hurricane. In an odd twist of fate, all the right circumstances fall into place: Hurricane Odin forms over the Caribbean; Perry and Kris have overlapping vacations; and Kris finds a wealthy Florida businessman willing to finance their adventure. As part of the deal, Kris secretly agrees to detour to tiny Trox Island and pick up a mysterious package. Unfortunately, Hurricane Odin has other plans for Perry and Kris, and their plane goes down in the storm-whipped seas. Ironically, Perry is cast ashore on Trox, which is deserted except for a herd of cows and a concrete bunker containing a safe full of strange-looking documents in assorted foreign languages. Rescued and back home in England, Perry finds himself the target of unknown assassins. Vowing to find out who's after him and why, Perry winds up playing secret agent and uncovering a plot to sell ingredients for nuclear weapons to terrorists. Francis offers up intrigue, adventure, and a gripping, fast-paced plot. This one is certain to please his legions of fans, even those who think they only like the racing mysteries. --Emily Melton
Library Journal Review
Brilliance Audio is first out of the starting gate with this recording of Francis's 40th book, which may be one of his most compelling yet. The novel starts with Perry Stuart fighting for his life in the towering hurricane-driven sea and is a nonstop page-turner until the last word, taking us inside the modern worlds of meteorology, physics, and terrorism. Stuart, BBC meteorologist, has always wanted to fly through a hurricane. When he gets his chance, he finds that stormy weather is the least of his problems, for the safe harbor he finds on an uninhabited island will lead to later deaths and even targets Stuart for terrorist attacks. The performance by Michael Page is guaranteed to be a winner with mystery and suspense fans. This story shows that Francis, Grand Master of mystery and three-time Poe Award winner, has not retired from writing thrillers. Recommended for all libraries.--Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
