Novels

Driving Force
"I thought chiefly that it wasn't a good time to discuss ultimate responsibility in the abstract."

Date of Publication: 1992 (PB)

Publisher: Fawcett Crest (PB)

Foreign Titles: Sporen German

Setting: Pixhill, England

Synopsis:
Transporting racehorses to the course is big business for ex-jockey Freddie Croft. He runs his fleet of vans and their drivers with tight reins, strict security, and everything on the up-and-up. But one driver breaks a cardinal rule -- never pick up a hitchhiker -- and the results are fatal ... for the hitchhiker.

A corpse is not only bad for business, it's also bad for Freddie's long-term survival. For the corpse's trail leads to corpse number two -- and to strange nighttime stalkers and unseen conspirators who are weaving a web of deceit and danger that Freddie might never escape ...

Main Characters:
Freddie Croft, 35 years old
Jogger, mechanic
Nina Young
P.C. Sandy Smith
Dr. Bruce Farway, arrogant doctor in general practice
Jerry Colin "Jericho" Rich, owner
Michael Watermead, trainer
Benjy and Dot Usher
Tessa Watermead
Aziz Nader, 28 years old
John Tigwood, director of Centaur Care
Susan and Hugo Palmerstone
Cinders
Lizzie Croft, physicist
Lewis, Nigel, Harve, Dave, drivers

Professions:
Freddie Croft owns a horse transport business.
Aziz Nader and Nina Young drive transport vans.

Comes after: Comeback

Villain and Motives: Spoilers! Click here to reveal the villain!

Quotes:
"I want to tell you, take a butcher's at them nuns. I found a dead one in the pit last August, and it was crawling and Poland had the same five on a horse last summer and it died."

"I had told the drivers never on any account to pick up a hitchhiker but of course one day they did, and by the time they reached my house he was dead."

"He carries a bagful of alibis about with him, ready to pull one out."

"Racecourse wits said he'd been sired by a lie detector out of a leech, in that one couldn't fool him or shake him off."

Quiz:
highlight the area beneath the question to discover the answer

1. What was the presumed translation for Irkab Alhawa?
Ride the Wind

2. What's the real translation for Irkab Alhawa?
Ride the Air

3. Why could the redhaired green-eyed Hugo Palmerstone have a brown-eyed brunette daughter?
Genetics, he could have anything as a throwback

4. What was unique about Jogger's rhymning slang?
It wasn't just rhyming slang, but word association rhyming slang ... and the association arose solely in Jogger's brain

5. What does Poland stand for in Jogger's rhyming slang?
Poland and Russia ... Usher (Benjy)

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