[**Here is the excerpt**](https://imgur.com/a/tPRc4SW). The context is the main character seeing two violent terrorists who have been apprehended in Moscow.
Dick Francis was a British steeplechase horseracing jockey who later became a prolific & successful author of crime thrillers.
As with many genre writers, his work was popular but not often respected as literature. A shame, as pound for pound, pulp writers are some of the most deft craftspeople in writing. Dick Francis novels are often littered with snatches of profound prose & keen insights on emotion, sex, integrity, violence, & other aspects of human incentive. Most DF novels feature a hero who must deal with logistical problems, inefficiency, violence, prejudice, and grief in the midst of mounting danger. His novels always have a tie to the world of horseracing, but are also carefully observed glimpses into all manner of British occupations & classes.
Interestingly, it might be said that Dick Francis was two people.
From an interview with DF concerning collaboration with his wife Mary:
>*Mary and I worked as a team. … I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary’s family always called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together.*
Many Dick Francis stories gain their perceptive atmospheric details because Mary Francis had steeped herself into the world of a new passion — such as photography, the jewelry trade, or piloting airplanes.
If you’ve not read a Dick Francis novel, I recommend starting with one of these four:
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**Bonecrack** (1971)
**Twice Shy** (1981)
**The Danger** (1983)
**Decider** (1993)
by LeBeauMonde