Novels

Flying Finish

"'You're a spoiled, bad-tempered bastard,' my sister said, and jolted me into a course I nearly died of."

Date of Publication: 1966 (PB)

Publisher: Pocket Books (PB)

Foreign Titles: Blindflug German

Setting: London; France: Chantilly; Italy: Milan

Synopsis:
When Henry Grey piloted his first cargo for Yardman Transport, he thought he was carrying only racehorses and broodmares out of England.

But it soon became apparent that something else was aboard. Something he wasn't meant to discover. Something that turned a routine flight into a chilling encounter with an international ring of smugglers dealing heavy- handedly in fraud, espionage and death.

Main Characters:
Henry Grey, 26 years old
Gabriella Barzini
Yardman
Simon Searle
Billy Watkins, 19 years old
Patrick, the redheaded pilot who first introduced Henry and Gabriella

Professions:
Henry Grey is a travelling head groom, a pilot, a secretary (for a bloodstock agency) and an amateur jockey. To top it all of, he's the son of an Earl. No, not Earl Grey. Er.
Yardman transports horses.
Gabriella smuggles drugs.

Comes after: Odds Against / Comes before: Blood Sport

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

Quotes:
"He wasn't so much a man, not even so much a person, as a force. A wild, elemental, poltergeist force trapped barely controllably in a vigorous steel-spring body."

"You couldn't say it was reasonable, it was just electric."

"Psychology ... is the death of courage."

"Now it's fashionable to say you're a coward. You may not be one, mind, but you've got to say so, just to prove you're normal."

"Defeat on all levels."

"[Billy was like] a tiger on a leash."

"I'd the whole sky to get lost in."

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

1. What was Gabriella smuggling?
birth control pills

2. What was the first and rather major stumbling block to Gabriella and Henry's attempts at communication?
He didn't speak Italian and she didn't speak English

3. Who argued that today it was fashionable to be a coward?
Patrick

4. With what implement did Simon Searle leave the cryptic message?
pins

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Related Links:
Putnam's Flying Finish

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