Even the secondary characters are carefully and convincingly drawn, creating a fully realized fictional world. We're also treated to a rollicking good time as we follow Tony while he figures out who's responsible for the crime. Along the way we learn a lot about wine and whiskey and how they're made. Francis here accomplishes an amazing tour de force of character study in the guise of mystery. Tony has always believed himself to be a coward and a failure, and PROOF is really about how he comes to understand that he is neither. In contrast to the violence, the book is also a meditation on courage. The story opens with an accident that results in awful carnage and quickly moves on to an extraordinarily cruel death of a wine steward. PROOF is at once one of Francis' most violent and most meditative books. Tony and McGregor join forces to discover who is responsible for the theft and fraud. He finds himself involved still further in the problem when he is approached by Gerard McGregor, a private investigator who is looking into the hijacking of several tankers of whiskey from a nearby supplier. The officer asks him to help the police with their inquiries by becoming their expert on wine and spirits. A horrific accident ensues, but not before Tony hears a rumor that a restaurant nearby has been selling whiskey that is not what the label claims it is.Īt the same time as the police investigate the accident Tony is contacted by an inspector who is assigned to follow up on complaints about the false labeling of spirits in several local establishments. In this book, Tony Beach, a wine merchant nearly out of his mind with grief over the recent death of his young wife, is engaged to supply the drinks for a trainer's end-of-season party. Buy or rent from PROOF is one of Dick Francis' strongest books, and when you're talking about a master like Francis, that's saying something.

Proof by Dick Francis