Brilliant, beautiful Susan Fletcher discovers the NSA is being held hostage by a code so complex that it would cripple U.S. intelligence if released.

When jockey Martin Stukely dies following a fall at Cheltenham, his friend Gerard Logan becomes embroiled in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. Logan, half artist, half artisan, is a glass blower on the verge of widespread acclaim for the originality and ingenuity of his work. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass and in maintaining a glass-making furnace at never less than eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit, Logan is suddenly faced with a series of unexpected and terrifying new threats to his business, his courage and his life. Believing the missing video tape to hold some sort of key to a priceless treasure, and wrongly convinced that Logan knows where to find it, a group of villains sets out to force from him the information he doesn't have. Narrowly escaping these attacks, Logan reckons that to survive he must himself find out the truth. The journey is thorny, and the final race to the tape throws more hurdles and more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined. Glass shatters. Logan doesn't . . . but it's a close run thing.

At his best, Francis can make you feel the hot breath of horses on the back of your neck' Michael Dobbs, Express on SundayDamaging allegations cost young Benedict Juliard his hopes of a career as a steeplechase jockey. Instead he's forced to join ranks alonside his father, a high-flying businessman battling a Dorset by-election for a street level entry into politics. The campaign gets off to a flying start. But this time the obstacles ahead aren't just dangerous - they're lethal. Horses, politics, lies and treachery. They can all carry the maximum 10lb penalty. And, as any jockey knows, a 10lb penalty can be a killer...