Seven years ago, Miles Pussett was a steeplechase jockey, loving the rush of the race. But after an unfortunate event, he left horseracing behind and swore he would never return. Now he gets his adrenaline rush from riding headfirst down the Cresta Run, a three-quarter-mile Swiss ice chute, reaching speeds of up to eighty miles per hour.
Finding himself in St Moritz during the same weekend as White Turf, when high-class horseracing takes place on the frozen lake, he gets talked into helping out with the horses. Against his better judgement, he decides to assist, but things aren’t as innocent as they seemed.
My Review
Iced didn’t quite live up to my expectations of a mystery. However, I did gain insight into mental health issues, discovered a new sport, and enjoyed the plot. Felix used an interesting technique to show how the character’s past affected his present by weaving two stories together, one, now and the other seven years earlier. However, as I read, I didn’t always switch from past to present, or vice versa, when I should have and felt confused. In addition, the protagonist, Miles Pussett, came off a little whiny, and I had little sympathy for him.
On the other hand, I didn’t put the book down. And I found I was interested in how Pussett, a jockey, ended up in St. Moritz riding the ice. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this book.
Meet Felix Francis
FELIX FRANCIS is Dick Francis’s youngest son. Born in 1953, Felix studied Physics and Electronics at London University and then embarked upon a 17 year career teaching Advanced Level physics at three schools, the last seven as head of the science department at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire.
Felix remembers conversations around the Francis breakfast table being somewhat unconventional. “The production of a Dick Francis novel has always been a mixture of inspiration, perspiration and teamwork. The first one was published when I was nine, and I grew up in a house where breakfast talk would be about the damage a bullet might do to a man’s guts rather than the more mundane topics of everyday life”, he says.
Over the past 40 years Felix assisted Dick with both the research and the writing of many of his novels. They shared a love of racing and often worked together on plot and character details at Dick’s home in the Cayman Islands. This partnership allowed Dick to draw upon Felix’s knowledge and experience as a physics teacher in Twice Shy and his past as an international marksman in Shattered (2000) and Under Orders (2006).
