Banker (Francis Thriller) - Best Selling Financial Crime Novel - Perfect for Mystery Lovers & Book Clubs

The plot of this novel spans two worlds: merchant banking and racehorse breeding. The narrator is Tim Ekaterin, great grandson of the founder of the family bank. Though only in his early thirties, Tim clearly has the family gene for money making. He's both a risk-taker and a careful assessor of risk.Tim's adventurous streak causes him to look kindly on an offbeat investment. Breeder Oliver Knowles has asked the Ekaterin bank for a loan of five million pounds to buy a racehorse for stud. Not just any horse, but Sandcastle, a famous champion who will take Knowles from middling to top breeder.As always Dick Francis gives the reader an education, this time on the earthy subject of getting horses to copulate successfully and breed future winners. Knowles acquires his stud horse, but with it comes a world of woe. Tim ends up being the main investigator of a conspiracy that's bigger and nastier than anyone dreams.There are lots of fun characters in the book: The fifty-year-old woman bloodstock agent who's always in a hurry, the high-betting tycoon who's alternately going broke or getting rich, the young jokester-banker who will do anything for a laugh, the lady pharmacist with an encyclopedic knowledge of drugs, the herbalist who heals sick horses by the laying on of hands.Banker has it all: murder, heroics, illicit love, low tricks and high finance. I highly recommend it.