But before she had time to grow up, Ricky’s life exploded into tragedy, and Perdita turned into a brat who loved only her horses – and Ricky France-Lynch. Perdita thought she’d get along with them very well. The polo set were ritzy, wild, and gloriously promiscuous. Perdita couldn’t wait to leave her dreary school and become a polo player. He also had the adoration of fourteen-year-old Perdita MacLeod. He had a large crumbling estate, a nine-goal polo handicap, and a beautiful wife who was fair game for anyone with a cheque book. In Jilly Cooper’s third Rutshire chronicle, we meet Ricky France-Lynch, who is moody, macho, and magnificent. As a rival group emerges to pitch for the franchise, reputations ripen and decline, true love blossoms and burns, marriages are made and shattered, and sex raises its delicious head at almost every throw as, in bed and boardroom, the race is on to capture the Cotswold Crown. Declan and Cameron detest each other, provoking a storm of controversy into which Rupert plunges with his usual abandon. Baddingham has also enticed Cameron Cook, a gorgeous but domineering woman executive, to produce Declan’s programme.

Declan needs only a few days at Corinium to realize that the Managing Director, Lord Baddingham, is a crook who has recruited him merely to help retain the franchise for Corinium. Living rather too closely across the valley is Rupert Campbell Black, divorced and as dissolute as ever, and now the Tory Minister for Sport. Into the cut throat world of Corinium television comes Declan O Hara, a mega star of great glamour and integrity with a radiant feckless wife, a handsome son and two ravishing teenage daughters.

Riders book jilly cooper