A review by darwinista
Bolt by Dick Francis

4.0

There are a number of objectionable people in this book, and the narrator and his friends all agree that the main goal is to handle these people politely and discreetly.

Spoiler

The story thus ends with one villain dying at someone else's hands (with the real story untold), another (even worse) villain thwarted in his bad intentions toward the protagonists but free to wreak havoc on the rest of the unsuspecting world, and a third terrible person (accessory to one of the others) rewarded with more money. The hero and his friends agree that neither the police nor the general public should be warned about any of this and that, above all, everything should be handled politely. So extreme is this imperative that, even when one of the villains arrives as an unwelcome guest at the protagonists's house, making their lives miserable through incessant nasty comments, and actually spying on them (and they know this), it doesn't occur to anyone to boot this villain out of the house.

Everything in this book is so diametrically opposed to my sense of justice and the common good that it detracted from my ability to enjoy the story.