Felix Francis

Who is Felix Francis?

Felix Francis is a British crime writer who is Dick Francis’s youngest son. Felix studied Physics and Electronics at London University and then embarked upon a 17 year career teaching Advanced Level physics at three schools, the last seven as head of the science department at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire, before quitting to look after his father's affairs. He currently lives in Oxfordshire.

Felix remembers conversations around the Francis breakfast table being somewhat unconventional. “The production of a Dick Francis novel has always been a mixture of inspiration, perspiration and teamwork. The first one was published when I was nine, and I grew up in a house where breakfast talk would be about the damage a bullet might do to a man’s guts rather than the more mundane topics of everyday life”, he says.

Over the past 40 years Felix assisted Dick with both the research and the writing of many of his novels. His wife Mary Francis had done much of this duty until her death in 2000 when Felix took over her work. Felix and his father shared a love of racing and often worked together on plot and character details at Dick’s home in the Cayman Islands. This partnership allowed Dick to draw upon Felix’s knowledge and experience as a physics teacher in Twice Shy and his past as an international marksman in Shattered and Under Orders. With the publication of Dead Heat in 2007, Felix took on a more significant role in writing. Silks was the second novel in this father-and-son collaboration and Even Money was the third. Crossfire was the novel Dick and Felix Francis were working on when Dick died in February 2010.