Admirable Sid Halley is the moral centerpiece of the novel. However, he is physically flawed in a way that shapes his personality and determines his attitude toward people. The last of his jockey-related injuries—a severely damaged left hand—abruptly ended his career. In Odds Against, soon after Halley embarked upon a second career as a sometime investigator, two of Francis's most vicious villains chop off Halley's crippled hand at the wrist. The novel ends with the hope that modern technology will enable him to be fitted with a myoelectric hand, so he can be whole again, perhaps even mounting a horse and winning a race.

Unlike most whodunit writers, Francis has pretty much eschewed the series detective, preferring to create a different hero for each book. In 1979, however, he reintroduced Sid Halley, probably because of a popular British television series featuring him. In that book...