A review of the novel, “Risk”, by Dick Francis.
This paper examines how financial double-dealing and accounting sleight-of-hand provide the essential conflict in “Risk”, a popular novel by British ex-steeplechase jockey, Dick Francis. It looks at how, whether he intended the metaphors or not, Francis provides parallels to those two activities in the structure of the novel itself. It discusses how the novel begins slowly and how it is about as far removed from accountancy as one can get: in the bottom of a boat where the protagonist, accountant Roland Britten, finds himself bound and tossed after winning the biggest steeplechase of his amateur riding career.
“The CEO of the U.S. company, Nantucket, might have prevented the problem by sending its own accountants to look over the books: even without knowing the entire tax code, one can see if numbers add up. Nantucket might also have had that accountant or a financial manager spend some time in England and become familiar with the area and the companies and people who operated with and near their own holdings. They also could have worked a lot of the supplies by contract, and asked for yearly bids on feed and hay and bedding. That would have locked Finch into using those arrangements, which wouldn’t have allowed him to simply sign for things that never arrived and then cut the check to himself. Another logical place that they could have caught him out(or prevented some of the theft) was in labor costs.” will writing service bradford