Hey! This is an extremely long shot, but I saw over on Dreamwidth that you've been reading Dick Francis, and it reminded me that there's one, the title of which I've forgotten, which I've been looking for for years. (I'm pretty sure it isn't the one called Longshot, although that would be funny.) I thought it was just possible it might be one of the ones you've read? The only scene I clearly remember featured someone dangling over a height and the protagonist collecting coats to place beneath them to cushion the landing. No worries if you don't know it, but at this point my only other chance is to read all of the books until I find it again. :)
I absolutely do not remember this AT ALL, I'm sorry! (Though I find when I reread Dick Francis books I've read before that I often forget a lot of the weird/zany/quirky little details that he tends to throw in. So it's possible I did actually read this, or maybe it's in one of his books I haven't gotten to yet.)
But I'm posting it in the hopes that someone else might know!
@peregrineroad (and anyone else who is curious) we have an answer, provided by a friend who's not on Tumblr! The book you're looking for is is Bolt (1986), one of his Kit Fielding books.
(I am entirely confident I've read the Kit Fielding series and I also continue to have no memory of this at all, so my Dick Francis detail-related memory hole continues to be in full effect.)
