Shattered

Table of Contents

 

 

—
The New York Times

 

 

 

—
Dayton Daily News

 

 

 

 

 

 

After his friend is killed in a horse-racing accident, up-and-coming glass artisan Gerard Logan finds himself embroiled in a deadly search for a stolen videotape. His friend had it—and now some very bad people want it. People who think it's now in Logan's possession.

 

Believing the tape contains priceless information, a vicious group of criminals sets out to get the answers out of him in any way possible. To survive, Gerard will have to uncover the truth about his friend's death while keeping a good distance between himself and his pursuers.

 

Because if they catch him, they will most surely break him ...

 

 

 

“FRANCIS HAS A WINNER.”—
The Chattanooga Times

 

 

“SHATTERED IS VINTAGE FRANCIS.”

—
The Knoxville News-Sentinel

—
Newsday

 

“It's either hard or impossible to read Mr. Francis without growing pleased with
yourself
: not only the thrill of vicarious competence imparted by the company of his heroes, but also the lore you collect as you go, feel like a field trip with the perfect guide.”—
The New York Times Book Review

 

“One of the most reliable mystery writers working today ... Francis's secret weapons are his protagonists. They are the kind of people you want for friends.”

—
Detroit News and Free Press

 

“[Francis] has the uncanny ability to turn out simply plotted yet charmingly addictive mysteries.”—
The Wall
Street
Journal

 

“A rare and magical talent ... who never writes the same story twice ... Few writers have maintained such a high standard of excellence for as long as Dick Francis.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

 

“Few things are more convincing than Dick Francis at a full gallop.”
—ChicagoTribune

 

“Francis just gets better and better ... It can't be as easy as he makes it look, or all mystery writers would be as addictive.”

—
The Charlotte Observer

 

“After writing dozens of thrillers, Dick Francis always retains a first-novel freshness.”—
The Indianapolis Star

 

“He writes about the basic building blocks of life—obligation, honor, love, courage, and pleasure. Those discussions come disguised in adventure novels so gripping that they cry out to be read in one gulp—then quickly reread to savor the details skipped in the first gallop through the pages.”

—
Houston Chronicle

 

“Dick Francis stands head and shoulders above the rest.”

—
Ottawa Citizen

Anthology
WIN, PLACE, OR SHOW
Nonfiction
A JOCKEY'S LIFE
THE SPORT OF QUEENS

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead. business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

SHATTERED

 

 

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons

 

PRINTING HISTORY
G. P. Putnam's Sons edition / September 2000
Jove edition / September
2001
Berkley edition / March 2005

Copyright © 2000 by Dick Francis.

 

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-17493-7

 

 

BERKLEY®
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

F
our of us drove together to Cheltenham races on the day that Martin Stukely died there from a fall in a steeplechase.

It was December 31, the eve of the year 2000. A cold midwinter morning. The world approaching the threshold of the future.

Martin himself, taking his place behind the steering wheel of his BMW, set off before noon without premonition, collecting his three passengers from their Cotswold Hills bases on his way to his afternoon's work. A jockey of renown, he had confidence and a steady heart.

By the time he reached my sprawling house on the hillside above the elongated tourist-attracting village of Broadway, the air in his spacious car swirled richly full of smoke from his favorite cigar, the Montecristo No. 2, his substitute for eating. At thirty-four he was spending longer and longer in a sauna each day, but was all the same gradually losing the metabolic battle against weight.

Genes had given him a well-balanced frame in general, and an Italian mother in particular had passed on a love of cooking, and vivacity.

He quarreled incessantly with Bon-Bon, his rich, plump and talkative wife, and on the whole ignored his four small children, often frowning as he looked at them as if not sure exactly who they were. Nevertheless his skill and courage and rapport with horses took him as often as always into the winner's circle, and he drove to Cheltenham calmly discussing his mounts' chances that afternoon in two fast hurdle races and one longer ‘chase. Three miles of jumping fences brought out the controlled recklessness that made him great.

He picked me up last on that fateful Friday morning, as I lived nearest to Cheltenham's racetrack.

Already on board, and by his side, sat Priam Jones, the trainer whose horses he regularly rode. Priam was expert at self-aggrandizement but not quite as good as he believed at knowing when a horse in his care had come to a performance peak. That day's steeplechaser, Tallahassee, was, according to my friend Martin on the telephone, as ready as he would ever be to carry off the day's gold trophy, but Priam Jones, smoothing his white late-middle-age thinning hair, told the horse's owner in a blasé voice that Tallahassee might still do better on softer ground.

Lounging back beside me on the rear seat, with the tip of one of Martin's cigars glowing symmetrically to ash, Tallahassee's owner, Lloyd Baxter, listened without noticeable pleasure, and I thought Priam Jones would have done better to keep his premature apologies in reserve.

It was unusual for Martin to be the one who drove Tallahassee's owner and trainer anywhere. Normally he took other jockeys, or me alone: but Priam Jones from arrogance had just wrecked his own car in a stupid rash of flat tires, thanks to his having tried to ignore head-on a newly installed deterrent no-parking set of rising teeth. It was the town's fault, he insisted. He would sue.

Priam had taken it for granted, Martin told me crossly, that he—Martin—would do the driving, and would not only take Priam himself but would also chauffeur the horse's owner, who was staying overnight with Priam for the Cheltenham meeting, having flown down from the north of England to the local Staverton airfield in a small rented air taxi.

I disliked Lloyd Baxter as thoroughly as he disliked me. Martin had warned me of the Priam tire situation (“Keep your sarcastic tongue behind your splendid teeth”) and had begged me also to swamp the grumpy, dumpy millionaire owner with anesthetizing charm in advance, in case Priam Jones's fears materialized and the horse drew a blank.

I saw Martin's face grinning at me in the rearview mirror as he listened to me sympathize with the flat tires. He more than paid any debt he owed me by ferrying me about when he could, as I'd lost my driver's license for a year through scorching at ninety-five miles an hour around the Oxford bypass (fourth ticket for speeding) to take him and his broken leg to see his point-of-death old retired gardener. The gardener's heart had then thumped away insecurely for six further weeks—one of life's little ironies. My loss of license now had three months to run.