The Edge » (Unabridged)

Dick Francis was one of the most successful postwar steeplechase jockeys, winning more than 350 races and riding for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. After his retirement from the saddle, he published an autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write more than forty acclaimed books, including the New York Times bestsellers Even Money and Silks. A three-time Edgar Award winner, he also received the prestigious Crime Writers Association s Cartier Diamond Dagger, was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen s Birthday Honours List in 2000. He died in 2010 at age eighty-nine, and remains among the greatest thriller writers of all time.

Felix Francis is the younger of Dick Francis s two sons. Over the last forty years Felix has assisted with the research of many of the Dick Francis novels, not least Twice Shy, Shattered, and Under Orders. Since 2006, Felix has taken a more significant role in the writing, first with Dead Heat and then increasingly with the bestsellers, Silks and Even Money. Crossfire is the fourth novel of this father-and-son collaboration. Felix Francis lives in England.

To the Jockey Club, the racing world would be a better place without Julius Apollo Filmer. An expert in corruption with a devastating line in witness intimidation - and proving to be a slippery character to put behind bars. Baffled, they call in undercover security agent Tor Kelsey to keep an eye on Filmer and his associates. It turns out to be a mission that takes Tor from the finest of English racecourses to the wild Canadian interior - on a luxury transcontinental train journey to end them all.

Publishers Weekly

To catch a murderer, an undercover agent for the British Jockey Club poses as a waiter on the ``Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train.'' ``There is no limit to the thrills along the way, and no way of predicting the stunning denouement,'' lauded PW. 1,000,000 first printing. (Mar.)