A Curl Up and Die Day

By Frank Dickens

Dicks is a cycle-racing fanatic, a former rider whose career ended abruptly at the Rome Olympics when he got the worst of an argument with Lars Pederson, a 22- stone Swedish shot-putter. When a Russian cyclist disappears, and Pederson seems to know more than he is telling, Dicks finds himself swept along by a tide of events more fast-moving and more dangerous than any cycle race.