My first Dick Francis-novel left me underwhelmed. I have the same issue with Agatha Christie, where the story is solid & should be entertaining, but never really grips me. The only other criticism I have is that our protagonist is a bit too perfect & that the identity of the culprit becomes so obvious half-way through the book that they could walk around with a sign saying "It's me!". Horse-racing though, makes much more sense now and that's cool.