[In the following review. Simpson asserts that "Francis always delivers a story you can bet on" as he does with Driving Force.]

Like a good race horse that always finishes in the money, Dick Francis always delivers a story you can bet on. His latest, Driving Force, is no exception. Again we have that winning formula: a decent, resourceful and courageous hero finds himself pitted against an evil force, which he ultimately overcomes. And, of course, some aspect of the horse racing industry is involved.

In this case, Freddie Croft, an ex-jockey, owns a business that transports horses. It's one thing when a hitchhiker dies of a heart attack in one of Croft's vans. But when an intruder searches the van, Croft knows something is up. Then the mysterious death of his maintenance man is too much of a coincidence. Croft's investigation leads to malicious destruction of his office and computer records, a senseless deliberate collision of his prized Jaguar into his sister's helicopter, and his being assaulted and subsequently dumped into the sea, where he nearly drowns.

Croft knows that some sort of virus is being transported, first because the deceased hitchhiker's thermos contained some tubes holding a liquid virus, and second because of the secret compartments discovered under his vans. The question is what was transported under there and why. The computer records might help discover the truth, but they were destroyed. Only Croft knows that he had a back-up disk locked in his safe. Imagine how a few well-placed viruses can debilitate good horses, and, in turn, affect the outcome of the races.

Francis builds his story skillfully, presenting an interesting variety of characters, some good and appealing, others unpleasant and possessing evil. The title, in fact, refers not to racing a horse, but to man's capacity for evil, that force within that obsessively drives an evil person to do what he or she does. It's always in a Francis novel, and it's always reassuring to see it defeated in the end.