SOURCE: "Racing All the Way to the Bank," in The New York Times Book Review, October 17, 1993, p. 40.

In the following review, Donleavy compares and contrasts Francis's Decider and William Murray's We're Off to See the Killer.

My own long-term interpretation of the writing trade has been that it is the turning of one's worst moments into money. And in Dick Francis and William Murray we have two writers who are ambidextrous, so to speak, and indeed are turning both their best and worst moments into revenue. These authors come out of their corners jabbing you instantly in the imagination and setting on edge your state of expectancy as they unfold with complacency-piercing words the contrasting worlds of horse racing on each side of the Atlantic. In Decider, Mr. Francis gives his somewhat more polite version, peopled by aristocrats in their country mansions. In We're Off to See the...