Warned Off: 1 - Tapa blanda

‘It’s a racing certainty that Warned Off will offer a challenge to Dick Francis. It’s packed with authentic dialogue and characters.’ Today

‘A very professional racing thriller ... lots of rough stuff, plenty of racing background and action all mixed up with a love interest combine to provide a fast-moving story.’ Publishing News

‘The plot is from the racing stockpot ... fast and violent.’ The Times

Warned Off From Champion Jockey at 22 to down-and-out at 27, Eddie Malloy is bitter and desolate, reduced to living in an ancient caravan working for a tyrannical horse dealer. Estranged from his family and the sport he loves, Eddie cannot forget or forgive the racing authorities for believing false allegations of horse doping against him which robbed him of his riding licence.

With another miserable Christmas looming, Eddie's discovery of murder victim Danny Gordon in the racing capital of Newmarket offers him a perilous path to the resurrection of his career. He must balance that ultimate reward against the risk of becoming a victim of Gordon's ruthless killers.

Racing's own police are too afraid to take on these killers; for them Eddie Malloy is dispensable. They also know he can be tough and ruthless when fighting for what he believes in.

Eddie's alone in the world now, if he dies trying to get his life back, who will care?

Written by ex-top jockey and BBC commentator Richard Pitman and racing journalist Joe McNally, Warned Off is the first in the series of seven mystery crime thrillers by the duo.

Warned Off sees the debut of Eddie Malloy, who features in six more of Richard and Joe's novels. The book has been rewritten and moves along at an even faster pace now.

We hope you enjoy Warned Off which also contains an excerpt from book two in the Eddie Malloy series, Hunted.

Richard and Joe

Richard rode 470 winners in the last 8 years of a 15 year career as a steeplechase jockey.

In 1973, Richard, riding the giant black Australian 'chaser Crisp, carrying the huge burden of 12 stones, led from the Canal Turn fence on the first circuit, going 25 lengths clear at one point, before being caught in the shadow of the post by the most famous Grand National horse in history, Red Rum, to whom Crisp was conceding 23lbs.

Besides writing with his former workmate Joe McNally, Richard has written six non-fiction books including the racing biography of the Queen Mother

Joe McNally first took an interest in racing when he was just 12. His early hero was one Richard Pitman aged 22. Joe followed Richard's career, even keeping a scrapbook, as Richard and trainer Fred Winter dominated the 1970s with horses like Pendil, Crisp, Lanzarote, Killiney and many more stars.

Joe and Richard first met in the early 1990s when both worked for racing broadcaster Satellite Information Services. Joe had some plot ideas Richard liked and the fiction-writing partnership grew from there.

Joe went on to become marketing manager at Aintree for nearly five years with two other notorious Grand Nationals coming in his time - the void race in 1993 and the bomb scare in 1997.

Joe was born in August 1953 in a small Scottish village dominated by the local coal and steel industry. Second oldest in a family of fifteen, Joe abandoned school at the age of 14 to try and find a job working with racehorses.

Joe's weight meant a career as a jockey was never going to be a realistic hope and aged 18, he took a job in the betting industry. Twenty two years after watching Red Rum on TV beating the Richard Pitman-ridden Crisp to win the first of his three Grand Nationals, Joe stood by the graveside, just one of four people present at the burial of Red Rum. Joe was marketing manager for the Grand National by then and he looks back on his years at Aintree with fondness.

Richard lives near The Valley of The Racehorse - Lambourn and is now retired. Joe is semi-retired and living in Scotland, travelling south from time to time to figure out with Richard what mystery can next be thrown at readers.