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Overview
When a hurricane-chasing plane is downed on a Caribbean island, TV meteorologist Perry Stuart barely escapes with his life. But he can't escape what he saw on the island--and if the people who've tracked him back to England have their way, Stuart will have a zero percent chance of survival.
Flying in the eye of a hurricane, a plane carrying TV reporter Perry Stuart crashes in the Caribbean. In this manner Stuart discovers an island of uranium smugglers, a find which puts his life in danger.
Synopsis
A TV weatherman takes a hurricane-chasing ride in a small airplane as a holiday diversion. But a frightening accident teaches him more secrets than wind speeds. And back home in England, he faces threats and danger as deadly as anything nature can dish out.
Publishers Weekly
With his 40th novel in as many years, grand master Dick Francis isn't up to his usual high standards, but fans know that even a subpar Francis is in the 95th percentile. Here the typical Francis hero is a young Englishman of a vanishing breed: smart, self-effacing although very good at his job, polite and thoroughly decent. Perry Stuart is a well-known TV weatherman for the BBC who was orphaned as a child and raised by his beloved, now crippled grandmother, who remains tartly sensible ("If you can't fix it, think about something else"). Joining fellow BBC weatherman Kris Ironside on a flying jaunt into the eye of a Caribbean hurricane, Perry survives when the plane crashes and washes up on a tiny, apparently abandoned island where the houses were destroyed by the hurricane. In a hut, he stumbles across a safe containing a mysterious file folder whose contents he cannot decipher. After a crew wearing radiation-protection suits arrive by air to rescue him, Perry's troubles are only beginning, as he slowly becomes aware of a sinister scheme in which well-off people are brokering enriched uranium to foreign nogoodniks. Among the cast are mushroom mogul Robin Darcy and his flashy American wife, two old SIS spooks--think an aging James Bond and a tottery M--and a beautiful nurse who is Perry's circumspect love interest. Perry continues to encounter danger: the sabotage of another plane he's on, threats by a muscle-bound thug in Grand Cayman. Francis's writing is smooth and intelligent, moving the reader right along, but the end of the book is more than a tad far-fetched. Still, ex-RAF pilot and champion steeplechaser Francis knows his stuff--and of course race courses figure in the plot. BOMC main selection; Audio Books main selection; 3-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewA lot of writers these days get compared to other writers. How many blurbs have you read comparing the author to Raymond Chandler, Carl Hiaasen, or Mary Higgins Clark?
I've never seen Dick Francis compared to anyone. The reason is simple. He is unto himself in style and plotting alike. If he resembles anybody, it is John Buchan, one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite thriller writers, or Robert Louis Stevenson.
Especially Stevenson.
Take Second Wind, Francis's new novel. One cannot possibly read the first sentence without reading on: "Delirium brings comfort to the dying." Nor can one read the first chapter without being caught up in the sweep of the story. Except for sagas, many — if not most — contemporary novels are set in relatively short spans of time. Ross MacDonald even suggested that the scope of the modern mystery not exceed 24 hours.
But, like Stevenson's, most of Francis's books have a sweep that gives one a great sense of adventure. In Second Wind, for instance, our hero, Perry Stuart, is a much-respected TV meteorologist in jolly old England. But then another meteorologist offers him the opportunity to witness the power and majesty — and terror — of weather in its rawest state. He offers to take our man along chasing hurricanes in the Caribbean. Some of the best writing Francis has ever done is in the hurricane chapters. He's always been precise. Rarely an excess word. Here there are moments that are almost Hemingway-esque — so spare yet so powerful in their descriptive powers that I went back and read them again afterfinishingthe book.
Francis, being the master plotter, uses the hurricane section of the book to accomplish two things. He wants to treat his readers to a true adventure — and he wants to set in motion one of his subtlest plots. Because when Perry Stuart gets back to England he learns — as most of John Buchan's heroes always learned — that he has somehow gotten himself in trouble with some ruthless and brutal people.
This is one of Francis's best novels in some time. The characters — especially the grandmother to whom Stuart frequently refers — stay with you long after you finish the book, and the flying sequences are flat-out brilliant. By God, Dick Francis is better than ever!
Publishers Weekly -
With his 40th novel in as many years, grand master Dick Francis isn't up to his usual high standards, but fans know that even a subpar Francis is in the 95th percentile. Here the typical Francis hero is a young Englishman of a vanishing breed: smart, self-effacing although very good at his job, polite and thoroughly decent. Perry Stuart is a well-known TV weatherman for the BBC who was orphaned as a child and raised by his beloved, now crippled grandmother, who remains tartly sensible ("If you can't fix it, think about something else"). Joining fellow BBC weatherman Kris Ironside on a flying jaunt into the eye of a Caribbean hurricane, Perry survives when the plane crashes and washes up on a tiny, apparently abandoned island where the houses were destroyed by the hurricane. In a hut, he stumbles across a safe containing a mysterious file folder whose contents he cannot decipher. After a crew wearing radiation-protection suits arrive by air to rescue him, Perry's troubles are only beginning, as he slowly becomes aware of a sinister scheme in which well-off people are brokering enriched uranium to foreign nogoodniks. Among the cast are mushroom mogul Robin Darcy and his flashy American wife, two old SIS spooks--think an aging James Bond and a tottery M--and a beautiful nurse who is Perry's circumspect love interest. Perry continues to encounter danger: the sabotage of another plane he's on, threats by a muscle-bound thug in Grand Cayman. Francis's writing is smooth and intelligent, moving the reader right along, but the end of the book is more than a tad far-fetched. Still, ex-RAF pilot and champion steeplechaser Francis knows his stuff--and of course race courses figure in the plot. BOMC main selection; Audio Books main selection; 3-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.(Newark, N.J.) Sunday Star-Ledger
Vintage Francis!Jon L. Breen
B.B.C. weathercaster Perry Stuart travels to Florida to join a manic-depressive colleague's latest adventure: flying into a hurricane. An opening chapter at Newmarket involving the mysterious illness of a great two-year-old filly provides the obligatory horse racing element. This isn't the best Francis, but the author's style, sense of story, and way with characters leave fans to hope his second wind is good for many more novels.—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Harry Mount
The descriptions of climatic conditions, particularly those of hurricanes are gripping… In his Eightieth year Dick Francis still has the ability to whip up a quick-flowing plot.&151#; The Times Literary Supplement