Sid Halley is an ex-jockey, turned PI following the loss of his hand in a racing accident, and in this book investigating the mutilation of horses. We know from the get-go who the villain is: one of Sid's friends (though I was never really able to believe this; the two of them seemed to do very little together); the book is mainly about the unravelling of the mystery and the psychological consequences for Sid, and others.

On the whole, though, this is a very run-of-the-mill Francis (so much so that I caught myself thinking, here we are three quarters of the way through, and nobody's tied him up yet? and then they did) and none the worse for that. I liked the ending, the refusal to take the easy way out and make everybody happy, to leave some things hanging.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/10020289