When your horse has just sprinted past the winning post, racing seems
a very cozy and civilized hobby. But the pleasure of a day at Sandown
is spoiled for Steven Scott when he sacks the trainer of his horses,
a man he once thought of as his friend. For although Jody Leeds seems
a bright young workaholic, Scott suspected heÆs a crook. And the worst
is yet to come.

Roland Britten is an amateur jockey and an accountant by profession.
One morning he awakens to find he can't move his hands; nor can he see.
All he can hear is the noise of an engine, very close by. He finally
decides he is lying in the dark, tied to a generator.
But why? And where? And by whom? And what will happen next?

Dick Francis is one of those rare authors who can create a multitude of characters, changing characters from one novel to the next. This makes the stories stand-alone novels which can be read independently. That is a marked contrast to authors who write series of novels about the same character, a practice that often requires reading an entire series to understand the characters.
The present novel is not exactly a whodunit because you can identify the guilty parties (or most of them) early in the game. The main plot is how to track them down and bring them to justice. The chase runs from England to Australia to New Zealand then back to Australia. As usual with this author, there are horses and racing involved including, in this case, the Melbourne Cup. There is an interesting system for placing bets.
The main character, Charles Todd, is an artist who paints oil paintings of horses. There is some interesting side information about the chemical deterioration of oil paints on older paintings, an area where most people are probably not well informed. There is also considerable information about counterfeit paintings. Let the buyer beware. The death of his cousin Donald's wife during a burglary sets Todd on the chase. The main story is fast action over a couple weeks.

Joomla! Template Design, Create Your Own


This complete, easy-to-use guide for web designers wanting to create unique templates for Joomla! websites covers template design workflow, debugging and validating code, creating drop-down menus, interactive and dynamic forms, and packaging templates for distribution, with advice on using multiple templates, replacing tables with CSS, using animation and other effects, and tricks to tweak existing templates. Readers need basic knowledge of Joomla! (which can be gained from Packt's Building Websites with Joomla!), of CSS and HTML, and of using Dreamweaver for coding. Written in PHP, free, award-winning Joomla! CMS is easy to install, simple to manage, reliable, and allows easy publication of content to Web or intranet. From simple websites to complex corporate applications, it is used spamide. A Joomla! template controls the presentation of content; it provides the design for viewing a Joomla!