Events | 2010.02.14
Author Dick Francis dies aged 89
Dick Francis, former champion jockey who sold more than 60m books, dies in the Cayman Islands
The bestselling thriller writer Dick Francis, has died at the age of 89, his family said today.
Francis, a former champion jockey from Oxfordshire, sold more than 60m books and was awarded a CBE in the Queen\'s birthday honours list in 2000.
He died early today in the Cayman Islands, where he spent his later years, his family said.
His son Felix, who co-wrote last year\'s Even Money with his father, said: "My brother, Merrick, and I are, of course, devastated by the loss of our father, but we rejoice in having been the sons of such an extraordinary man. We share in the joy that he brought to so many over such a long life."
Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys, winning 345 races in a career spanning nine years and receiving the title of champion jockey for jump racing in 1953/4. He was famously leading the 1956 Grand National on Devon Loch, owned by the Queen Mother, when its legs inexplicably buckled under it, having cleared the final fence.
He retired from racing in 1957 and took up writing, first for the Sunday Express. He published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, the year he retired before embarking five years later on what would be a prolific career as a thriller writer with his first novel, Dead Cert.
Francis wrote more than 40 bestsellers, translated into more than 20 languages. He also penned a volume of short stories and the biography of Lester Piggott. He won a number of awards, including the Edgar Allen Poe award in 1970 and 1980, the Gold Dagger award in 1980 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger award in 1989, all for best crime novel of the year.
He also had a distinguished military career, serving in the RAF in 1940, initially stationed in the Egyptian desert before he was commissioned as a pilot in 1943.
An unauthorised biography of the author, written by Graham Lord and published in 1999, claimed that Francis\'s wife, Mary, wrote most of his books but kept in the background because her husband\'s name had more "credibility" on the cover of the "masculine" books. The couple denied the claims.
Mary, to whom Francis was married for 53 years, died the following year. He had five grandchildren and one great grandson.
There will be a small funeral at his home in Grand Cayman, followed by a memorial service in London in due course, his spokesman said.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/14/dick-francis-dies-horse-novels
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