Proof by Dick Francis (1985)

Proof
by Dick Francis
Publisher:  G. P. Putnam's Sons
Copyright:  1985

Young wine merchant Tony Beach has known tragedy, but never violence.  Until his wine-tasting expertise is enlisted to substantiate a liquor scam.  Until the revealing of that scam leads to murder -- by a method so grisly as to be inspired.  Until the killing's brutal aftermath spreads from the world of twelve-year-old scotch to the world of three-year-old thoroughbreds.  Until Tony is hurled within bull's-eye range of a murderer's heartless vengeance.

As he crouched behind a stack of cases of champagne in a storeroom beneath a racetrack, with his pursuers coming closer, it must have occurred to Tony Beach that, until a few weeks before, he had been quite an unexceptional man.  True, he was hardly of an age to be a grieving widower.  True, his acumen at evaluating the wines and whiskey he purveyed so lovingly had always been extraordinary.  Actually, it was that very acumen that had caused his life to take a turn far wilder than his most outrageous fantasies.  For, once he pronounced the best scotch and the finest claret at the Silver Moondance restaurant to be something other than what they were labeled, he had become the hunter and the hunted -- in a far-reaching plot to defraud and destroy, wherein greed was more sacred than mercy, and the penalty of innocence was death.

Rarely, if ever, has even the master himself concocted a mystery so wonderfully complex, with so disarming a protagonist nd such a varied and unforgettable cast of characters.  Proof is truly vintage Dick Francis.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover is lightly discolored and shows shelf wear.  Pages are tanned from age.  Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.  Binding is starting to split in places throughout the book, and beginning to come apart between pages 114-115.

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