Iced

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He also tries to emulate his father, pursuing jump racing, but perpetually battling the brutal weight requirements and the demands of his boss, stable owner Jerry Dickinson, horses, and owners. When once again the story was going back to his early career I was finished with the tedious and minutely detailed descriptions of the sport. The aspects of PTSD, depressive psychosis and mental health issues discussed were carefully used I thought but could be triggering for some, so be wary.

In the now, Miles, bumps into some people from the horse riding industry, in the seven years since Miles quit horse racing he had never been there during the White Turf weekend. I do agree that Miles didn't seem to be very likeable or very mature, as other reviewers have noted, but that may have been necessary for the plot and the underlying message.But his mum didn’t want that for him, she hadn’t been able to watch his Jim race, so the last thing she wanted was for Miles to go down that same route. I discovered the horse racing novels of Dick Francis more than forty years ago and have since read more than fifty of Mr Francis’ books plus those he wrote in collaboration with his son Felix and those written entirely by Felix Francis.

The characterizations are very well rendered, with believable three dimensional characters and dialogue which is never clunky or overwrought.

Moritz is also the site of winter horseracing on ice and Jerry Dickinson is there with a couple of his horses. It is an experience that Miles cannot get from his mind and he blames his father's death on himself. She spends a few hours talking with him on the phone and a half a day touring her hometown and that is enough for her to change her life.

If you're a confirmed reader of this author's books - and/or those of his late father, Dick Francis - do not expect this one to be another standard issue. I did like this story but did not like Miles’s self-pity, self-harming(drinking and luging) and general inertia. Some of the grief that Miles had never really dealt with, as it seemed he never had anyone close he could talk to.We expect to do what we have done before, to exist in familiarity, and habits are the manifestation of mostly unconscious, involuntary actions. Iced” features the past and present life of former steeplechase jockey Miles Pussett and his mental health problems and the various ways they developed and his attempts to deal with them before receiving professional help. The style of the books has changed (for the better, I think) since they were under the sole authorship of Dick Francis and it is eleven years since Francis senior died.

It's a slow burn book and you're going to learn quite a lot about the problems of addiction and alcoholism along with the attendant mental health issues. On a personal note, one minor issue for me was that I had a little bit of trouble sometimes keeping track of the shifts from past to present and back. People in the story kept saying, "You're a disgrace, I'm glad your father is not here to see you" "You'll never be the jockey your father was" and so on. He used the idea of writing a book so he could peruse all of the horse races while getting ginned up and gambling on the ponies. The language and some of the action is a bit rough and gritty, so it's not a completely innocent cozy read.I, sadly, am not… I confess I speed read the pages crammed full of descriptions of individual British courses, and of the mechanics of individual races in which Miles rode. He has run into his old boss/trainer, Jerry, who asks for a bit of help at the White Turf horse race in St. I suspected, but was kept guessing, and had to smile to myself when everything was sewn up very nicely at the end. So IMHO, it's another one well done - maybe more so because it isn't just another formulaic entry into a series. Miles doesn't always make the best choices, but given his life circumstances, he's doing the best he can.