The Wilbur Smith Discussion Forums

He was a jockey for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother that won over 300 races. He retired in 1957 as a result of a serious fall and became a full time writer in 1962. He has produced about 40 books, all of them are thrillers set against the horseracing background.

He is no stranger to controversy. In 1999 an unauthorized biography suggests that the books were actually written by his wife. Whether it’s true or not Mary Francis did most of the research and editing of the books. He produced one book a year till 1999, year of his wife’s passing. And did not publish anything else till 2006; which may give strength to the rumor.

Anyway, they are excellent thrillers. And also very fast reads. They don’t have the depth or larger than life scope of WS books; but they are great entertainment to fill up a couple of afternoons.

Here are a few:

Dead Cert
Nerve
For Kicks
Odds Against
Flying Finish
Forfeit
Proof
To the Hilt

I've read 22 of his novels but only 'To The Hilt' from your ^ list. (The others are all very early ones & my library didn't have them at the time I was looking for them.) Anyway, I thoroughly agree - his books are excellent thrillers, fast reads & good "inbetweeners" when you're reading a stack of 'heavier' style authors.

This Forum has made me realise how naive I've been with regard to writers. I knew about pseudonyms but used to think ghost writers were only used for biographies. It's a deceitful world we live in that's increasingly driven by greed. We like to 'escape' into our fiction books & then find out that the truth is often weirder than the fiction

However, as Son of the Silver Fox intimated in the Clive Cussler thread, as long as it's a good story & no one has been hurt by the deceit, I suppose it doesn't really matter.

Well, I believe that nothing is as good as the original. I just created a thread for Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Several people have used the character afterwards, but nobody has come close to be as brilliant as the original. Also, some authors of series leave specific instructions behind so nobody else can use the characters they created.