Felix Francis has done a very nice job continuing his father’s horse-themed mysteries, and if you only read the blurb on its webpage, Iced seems to be just another one of these. At times it is an uncomfortable read: we identify all too easily with the young hero, but are powerless to influence the damaging choices he makes, choices that leave him exposed and vulnerable. It is slow and boring unless you are interested in the technical detail of professional horse riding, which I am not.

And in doing so, I realised that the descriptions of life in the jockey world would have been far more captivating if written by Dick Francis because he would have included threats, suspicion and an altogether more exciting story weaving around Miles Pusset's depressingly gloomy life.I did like this story but did not like Miles’s self-pity, self-harming(drinking and luging) and general inertia. He has quit horseracing but still loves extreme sports and is pushing to be the best in tobogganing on the Cresta Run, still going breathtaking speeds with corresponding chances of bodily harm, just like in steeplechasing. Iced is actually a bit more than that, though, as it bounces back and forth between two storylines: a retrospective look at protagonist Miles Pussett’s difficult early life and mental health battles, and today’s story, with a now sober Pussett cautiously, and somewhat unwillingly, dipping his toes back into horse racing after a long hiatus. The book is engaging and readable with an action driven plot told in parallel first person PoV through flashbacks and the current day, timelines which converge in St. Finding himself in St Moritz during the same weekend as White Turf, when high-class horseracing takes place on the frozen lake, Miles gets talked into helping out with the horses.

At Cresta, the luging event, he runs into his old trainer Jerry who asks for help dressing two horses for the ice racing the next day. While I enjoy Felix Francis as a worthy successor to his father's (mother's, some say) literary mantle, this book seemed more to be a recovery exercise or penance.At some point it dawned on me that the whole point of this book was for the author to go on holiday to various places of interest.

It contains a number of flashbacks that talk about his past and the things that made him the man he is now. This really was a story about insecurity, mental health, alcohol addiction, and lots of poor choices. Thanks so much to Hayley Cox, Midas PR, Felix Francis and Simon and Schuster UK for my copy of this book. I do agree that Miles didn't seem to be very likeable or very mature, as other reviewers have noted, but that may have been necessary for the plot and the underlying message.

The formula requires a crime based mystery to be introduced at the start, a fast action plot and a very direct and easy to follow writing style. He finds that the latest runner did not win, and when he is pulling the equipment and saddle off him finds the breast girth filled with lead weights. Overall this was an interesting read, i would have liked a little more suspense or drama thrown in, but this is still an entertaining read. Miles Pussett is a former steeplechase jockey but he now gets his adrenalin rush from hurling himself, head first, down the Cresta Run, a three-quarter-mile long Swiss ice chute, reaching speeds of up to eighty miles per hour. Alternate passages of the book swing between the present day in St Moritz and Miles’ rise towards fame – and then descent into failure – as a steeplechaser.

A good storyline, well-written, my only criticism being that the constant jumping back and forth in time becomes annoying.

It is the first book by Felix Francis that I have read, and I will definitely be looking out for more of his books in the future. He's abandoned the entire horseracing industry to preserve his mental health but the speed and danger of racing down an icy course at high speed fills his need for adventure. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.