Edition: Hamlyn, 1968
Review number: 705
The Python Project is very similar to The Whip Hand, an earlier Canning thriller; it has the same background, many of the same characters, and virtually the same plot. Rex Carver, shady private detective, is hired to investigate the theft of some jewellery by an insurance company, and swiftly finds himself involved in something very dangerous and obscure, but an affair at least agreeably full of good looking young women.
The main interest in this novel is when Carver's partner, the organised Hilda Wilkins, who disapproves of Carver's operational methods, becomes involved in the active side of the case, much to her dislike. However, the novel as a whole is far too similar to The Whip Hand to be truly successful; you can't help feeling that a private detective whose account of every case he has involves reiterating the phrase "If I'd known what I was getting into, I'd have left it alone" is not quite in the right line of work. (This is one of the more annoying, if small, similarities.) Either novel by itself would rank among Canning's best, but taken together, one of them must seem very unoriginal.
Showing posts with label Victor Canning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victor Canning. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 January 2001
Wednesday, 15 November 2000
Victor Canning: The Whip Hand (1965)
Edition: Heinemann, 1965
Review number: 685
This thriller, though not terribly original, must rank as one of the best written of all Victor Canning's novels. Certainly, it is easily the best of those I have read. It is a well written, well characterised first person narrative; only the hackneyed nature of the plot lets it down.
The narrator is a sarcastic and cynical private investigator. Such narrators are hardly original - in this case, I suspect that the original is probably Len Deighton's Harry Palmer - but Rex Carver is better written than many of them. He is approached to find a girl named Katerina, and then to follow her across Europe; naturally, there are little things which suggest to Carver that something important is going on, and he is being given not only less than the whole picture but not quite enough information to act effectively. In addition to this, Katerina is an extraordinarily beautiful blond, and he more or less looses his head about her.
The Whip Hand's biggest problem is the nature of the mystery that Carver is really being asked to investigate; it hardly motivates the concern of the security forces of various countries which attempt to control, hinder, or suborn Carver along the way. This makes the ending a disappointment, but for most of the novel the high standard of the writing carries the reader on.
Review number: 685
This thriller, though not terribly original, must rank as one of the best written of all Victor Canning's novels. Certainly, it is easily the best of those I have read. It is a well written, well characterised first person narrative; only the hackneyed nature of the plot lets it down.
The narrator is a sarcastic and cynical private investigator. Such narrators are hardly original - in this case, I suspect that the original is probably Len Deighton's Harry Palmer - but Rex Carver is better written than many of them. He is approached to find a girl named Katerina, and then to follow her across Europe; naturally, there are little things which suggest to Carver that something important is going on, and he is being given not only less than the whole picture but not quite enough information to act effectively. In addition to this, Katerina is an extraordinarily beautiful blond, and he more or less looses his head about her.
The Whip Hand's biggest problem is the nature of the mystery that Carver is really being asked to investigate; it hardly motivates the concern of the security forces of various countries which attempt to control, hinder, or suborn Carver along the way. This makes the ending a disappointment, but for most of the novel the high standard of the writing carries the reader on.
Tuesday, 26 October 1999
Victor Canning: The Immortal Wound (1978)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 371
The Immortal Wound brings Canning's Arthurian trilogy to its conclusion. Unfortunately, the novel is no more satisfying than the earlier stories and the annoying little touches which I found so jarring continue - the poems, and the way that descriptions of characters' thoughts are continually interrupted by the exclamation "Aie!".
This novel tells the story of Arto's progression from young leader of a small war band to high king of Britain to his death, with length gaps. Much of the force of the legendary material is dissipated, the more Freudian touches (Arthur's unknowing incest with his sister, the symbols in the quest for the Holy Grail, the betrayal by Lancelot) being fairly ruthlessly suppressed. Only Guinevere's adultery is mentioned at all, and that is excused by her motivation: to produce an heir for Arto in defiance of a prophecy that he will "throw no seed".
The best of the three novels is the first, The Crimson Chalice, perhaps because it has least connnection to the well known legends.
Review number: 371
The Immortal Wound brings Canning's Arthurian trilogy to its conclusion. Unfortunately, the novel is no more satisfying than the earlier stories and the annoying little touches which I found so jarring continue - the poems, and the way that descriptions of characters' thoughts are continually interrupted by the exclamation "Aie!".
This novel tells the story of Arto's progression from young leader of a small war band to high king of Britain to his death, with length gaps. Much of the force of the legendary material is dissipated, the more Freudian touches (Arthur's unknowing incest with his sister, the symbols in the quest for the Holy Grail, the betrayal by Lancelot) being fairly ruthlessly suppressed. Only Guinevere's adultery is mentioned at all, and that is excused by her motivation: to produce an heir for Arto in defiance of a prophecy that he will "throw no seed".
The best of the three novels is the first, The Crimson Chalice, perhaps because it has least connnection to the well known legends.
Wednesday, 6 October 1999
Victor Canning: The Circle of the Gods (1977)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 351
The second of Canning's Arthurian trilogy tells the story of Arthur's growing up, until his twenties and early fame as a war leader. The traditional story is pretty much ignored, with only the odd character whose name suggests the standard legends. (Instead of Lancelot, for example, we have a character named Lancelo.)
The simplicity of the plot of The Circle of the Gods - the title comes from the name used by Canning for Stonehenge - brings improvements with it over the first book of the trilogy. Canning is clearly more comfortable with a fairly straightforward description of action, and the descent into bad poetry which marred The Crimson Chalice is mercifully absent.
Nevertheless, characters remain two-dimensional and the fifth century background incidental.
Review number: 351
The second of Canning's Arthurian trilogy tells the story of Arthur's growing up, until his twenties and early fame as a war leader. The traditional story is pretty much ignored, with only the odd character whose name suggests the standard legends. (Instead of Lancelot, for example, we have a character named Lancelo.)
The simplicity of the plot of The Circle of the Gods - the title comes from the name used by Canning for Stonehenge - brings improvements with it over the first book of the trilogy. Canning is clearly more comfortable with a fairly straightforward description of action, and the descent into bad poetry which marred The Crimson Chalice is mercifully absent.
Nevertheless, characters remain two-dimensional and the fifth century background incidental.
Tuesday, 28 September 1999
Victor Canning: The Crimson Chalice (1976)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 339
There seems to be something about the Arthur legend which attracts thriller writers. Best known are probably Mary Stewart's books, but other authors who have tackled the subject include Bernard Cornwell and Victor Canning. Canning's trilogy, beginning with The Crystal Chalice, is less a straight retelling of the legend than a story inspired by it - particularly the Holy Grail elements. In The Crimson Chalice, for example, Arthur and Merlin hardly get a mention. Magic is virtually banished, just occasionally appearing here and there. This mainly makes it serve as a reminder that the setting is Arthurian, rather than being a straight fifth century historical novel.
Young upper class Roman girl Tia (short for Gratia) flees from the destruction of her father's villa by a party of marauding Saxons, when she comes upon the body of Baradoc in the woods. Heir to the chieftainship of a British tribe in the far west, he was taken prisoner by Phoenician traders and sold as a slave. He is also escaping the Saxons, but has been attacked and left for dead by his cousin, the next heir. She nurses him back to health, and they continue together to Aquae Sulis (Bath) and the comparative safety of her uncle's villa there.
The self-deprecating postscript effectively disarms criticism of Canning's style; suffice it to say that some of the more romantic and poetic passages are ill advised.
Review number: 339
There seems to be something about the Arthur legend which attracts thriller writers. Best known are probably Mary Stewart's books, but other authors who have tackled the subject include Bernard Cornwell and Victor Canning. Canning's trilogy, beginning with The Crystal Chalice, is less a straight retelling of the legend than a story inspired by it - particularly the Holy Grail elements. In The Crimson Chalice, for example, Arthur and Merlin hardly get a mention. Magic is virtually banished, just occasionally appearing here and there. This mainly makes it serve as a reminder that the setting is Arthurian, rather than being a straight fifth century historical novel.
Young upper class Roman girl Tia (short for Gratia) flees from the destruction of her father's villa by a party of marauding Saxons, when she comes upon the body of Baradoc in the woods. Heir to the chieftainship of a British tribe in the far west, he was taken prisoner by Phoenician traders and sold as a slave. He is also escaping the Saxons, but has been attacked and left for dead by his cousin, the next heir. She nurses him back to health, and they continue together to Aquae Sulis (Bath) and the comparative safety of her uncle's villa there.
The self-deprecating postscript effectively disarms criticism of Canning's style; suffice it to say that some of the more romantic and poetic passages are ill advised.
Thursday, 22 July 1999
Victor Canning: The Melting Man (1968)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 295
In this early novel, Victor Canning presents a narrator who at the outset seems intended to be Len Deighton's Harry Palmer. He is not such a master of the sort of truculent attitude embodied in Palmer as Deighton is, and the characterisation soon slips. With flashes of Chandler's Marlowe on the way, we end up with a narrator similar to those of Eric Ambler, if rather nastier than any of them and without the ineffective air Ambler usually gives his central characters. That Canning is not of the same rank as any of these other authors is undeniable (and the slippage of Rex Carver's characterisation demonstrates this), but you can certainly see what would have influenced a publisher to accept this novel.
The narrator runs a fairly shady business in London, which basically bears the same sort of relationship to a normal private detective agency as Special Branch does to the CID. The rich businessman Cavan O'Dowda commissions him to recover a Mercedes, lost somewhere in the south of France by his stepdaughter, who claims to have amnesia about what happened when she disappeared for some days. Carver soon realises that it isn't the car itself that O'Dowda wants back; he was using his stepdaughter to unknowingly courier some sensitive documents to France. Other groups are soon chasing the documents, including representatives of an African dictator and Interpol.
We are soon in standard thriller territory, with the nasty touches that tend to mark out Canning's novels, even among other early seventies' writers. The title of the novel is derived from one of these. O'Dowda is on the edge of insanity, and keeps a room in a chateau filled with waxworks of those who attempted to prevent his success in some way. There, he likes to gloat about his eventual victories; the fire that destroys him along with the dummies is one of the more unpleasant passages in this book.
Review number: 295
In this early novel, Victor Canning presents a narrator who at the outset seems intended to be Len Deighton's Harry Palmer. He is not such a master of the sort of truculent attitude embodied in Palmer as Deighton is, and the characterisation soon slips. With flashes of Chandler's Marlowe on the way, we end up with a narrator similar to those of Eric Ambler, if rather nastier than any of them and without the ineffective air Ambler usually gives his central characters. That Canning is not of the same rank as any of these other authors is undeniable (and the slippage of Rex Carver's characterisation demonstrates this), but you can certainly see what would have influenced a publisher to accept this novel.
The narrator runs a fairly shady business in London, which basically bears the same sort of relationship to a normal private detective agency as Special Branch does to the CID. The rich businessman Cavan O'Dowda commissions him to recover a Mercedes, lost somewhere in the south of France by his stepdaughter, who claims to have amnesia about what happened when she disappeared for some days. Carver soon realises that it isn't the car itself that O'Dowda wants back; he was using his stepdaughter to unknowingly courier some sensitive documents to France. Other groups are soon chasing the documents, including representatives of an African dictator and Interpol.
We are soon in standard thriller territory, with the nasty touches that tend to mark out Canning's novels, even among other early seventies' writers. The title of the novel is derived from one of these. O'Dowda is on the edge of insanity, and keeps a room in a chateau filled with waxworks of those who attempted to prevent his success in some way. There, he likes to gloat about his eventual victories; the fire that destroys him along with the dummies is one of the more unpleasant passages in this book.
Thursday, 17 June 1999
Victor Canning: Birdcage (1978)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 275
With the name of the main villain in this novel, Lord Bellmaster, irresistibly making me feel that he must have escaped from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, is was difficult for me to take Birdcage seriously. A pity, for it is rather good as minor seventies thrillers go.
Birdcage is about the activities of a shadowy British intelligence agency, nicknamed "Birdcage" because its offices are in Birdcage Walk in London. Lord Bellmaster was at one time the head of Birdcage, and engaged in many morally dubious practices to increase the profile of the agency in Whitehall and increase his personal power within the government at the time. These included using his mistress Lady Jean Branton as an agent to seduce those in whom he was interested, as well as murder and general corruption.
The novel itself concentrates on Jean's daughter Sarah, who believes her father to be the complaisant Colonel Branton when in fact it is Lord Bellmaster himself. She has taken vows to become a nun, but her psychological inability to cope with this way of life leads her to experience a phantom pregnancy, then to run away and attempt to drown herself. Falling in love with the man who rescues her, she follows the instructions given her by her now dead mother in case she should ever wish to return to the world. She seeks out her mother's beloved maid, who has a parcel for her. This contains some precious jewellery and a book, apparently the devotional Dialogues of the Soul and Body by St Catherine of Genoa, but actually a diary recording with embarrassing honesty Lady Jean's activities on behalf of Lord Bellmaster.
Clearly, such a diary is of immense importance to Lord Bellmaster, and he devotes his own time, and calls in favours to be able to use Birdcage's resources, to discovering whether it exists and neutralising it if it does. "Neutralising" may mean, and Bellmaster is prepared for it to mean, the murder of all those who know of the diary.
The best thing about this novel is that a happy ending is not guaranteed; Canning really loads the dice against the "good guys". Another virtue is that the characters are not all black and white; some are rather stuck in between, victims mainly by their association with Bellmaster.
Review number: 275
With the name of the main villain in this novel, Lord Bellmaster, irresistibly making me feel that he must have escaped from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, is was difficult for me to take Birdcage seriously. A pity, for it is rather good as minor seventies thrillers go.
Birdcage is about the activities of a shadowy British intelligence agency, nicknamed "Birdcage" because its offices are in Birdcage Walk in London. Lord Bellmaster was at one time the head of Birdcage, and engaged in many morally dubious practices to increase the profile of the agency in Whitehall and increase his personal power within the government at the time. These included using his mistress Lady Jean Branton as an agent to seduce those in whom he was interested, as well as murder and general corruption.
The novel itself concentrates on Jean's daughter Sarah, who believes her father to be the complaisant Colonel Branton when in fact it is Lord Bellmaster himself. She has taken vows to become a nun, but her psychological inability to cope with this way of life leads her to experience a phantom pregnancy, then to run away and attempt to drown herself. Falling in love with the man who rescues her, she follows the instructions given her by her now dead mother in case she should ever wish to return to the world. She seeks out her mother's beloved maid, who has a parcel for her. This contains some precious jewellery and a book, apparently the devotional Dialogues of the Soul and Body by St Catherine of Genoa, but actually a diary recording with embarrassing honesty Lady Jean's activities on behalf of Lord Bellmaster.
Clearly, such a diary is of immense importance to Lord Bellmaster, and he devotes his own time, and calls in favours to be able to use Birdcage's resources, to discovering whether it exists and neutralising it if it does. "Neutralising" may mean, and Bellmaster is prepared for it to mean, the murder of all those who know of the diary.
The best thing about this novel is that a happy ending is not guaranteed; Canning really loads the dice against the "good guys". Another virtue is that the characters are not all black and white; some are rather stuck in between, victims mainly by their association with Bellmaster.
Monday, 17 May 1999
Victor Canning: The Mask of Memory (1974)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 251
One of Canning's better novels, The Mask of Memory is about a man who leads a double life. Bernard Tucker has two completely separate existences. In Devon, he has a wife with money of her own, still good-looking but neglected by him; she basically lives alone with him as an occasional visitor. Eventually she meets another man, and reaches the point when she is ready to leave her husband. She tells him when he next visits; he isn't happy about it (more because of the background of the other man than because he wants to stay with her himself), but later that same day he is discovered dead, having apparently slipped and fallen while on a walk.
This is where the two strands of Bernard's life begin to come together. His job is, in fact, with the security services; at the time when he married Margaret, the men in his service were not supposed to have families. This was the original reason that he separated his life into two compartments. When he died, he was in the middle of a mission, and had gone to his Devon home to work on some papers crucial to its success. Thus, when he does not return to London, his department is somewhat concerned, particularly given the fairly remote possibilities that he may have defected to or been eliminated by the opposition.
The plot is not especially dramatic for a thriller, and Canning is thrown back on his abilities to flesh out his characters. He does this fairly successfully for Margaret and Bernard, and they are what brings interest to this novel.
Review number: 251
One of Canning's better novels, The Mask of Memory is about a man who leads a double life. Bernard Tucker has two completely separate existences. In Devon, he has a wife with money of her own, still good-looking but neglected by him; she basically lives alone with him as an occasional visitor. Eventually she meets another man, and reaches the point when she is ready to leave her husband. She tells him when he next visits; he isn't happy about it (more because of the background of the other man than because he wants to stay with her himself), but later that same day he is discovered dead, having apparently slipped and fallen while on a walk.
This is where the two strands of Bernard's life begin to come together. His job is, in fact, with the security services; at the time when he married Margaret, the men in his service were not supposed to have families. This was the original reason that he separated his life into two compartments. When he died, he was in the middle of a mission, and had gone to his Devon home to work on some papers crucial to its success. Thus, when he does not return to London, his department is somewhat concerned, particularly given the fairly remote possibilities that he may have defected to or been eliminated by the opposition.
The plot is not especially dramatic for a thriller, and Canning is thrown back on his abilities to flesh out his characters. He does this fairly successfully for Margaret and Bernard, and they are what brings interest to this novel.
Thursday, 29 April 1999
Victor Canning: Queen's Pawn (1969)
Edition: Heinemann
Review number: 242
The way Queen's Pawn works is basically like a caper movie, or, rather, two caper movies stitched together. It is the story of the dreams of two men, Raikes and Sarling. Raikes dreams of regaining the ancestral home of his family, marrying and bringing up children, of trout fishing in the rivers around his land.
At the beginning of Queen's Pawn, Raikes has just about achieved his ambitions, having made a large sum of money through a series of frauds. He is about to buy back the house; he is engaged to the daughter of a local landowner. But then a tiny slip made in one of the frauds catches up with him. In the desk drawer of an office used temporarily to give substance to a non-existent company, he had left behind a catalogue from a fishing tackle manufacturer, with a mark next to an unusual float that he coveted (and bought from the proceeds of the fraud). The owner of the company on which the fraud was perpetrated found this and traced Raikes through the shop which printed the catalogue.
The company's owner was the other main character, Sarling. Sarling was the youngest in his family, and was always the one who was left out. An unprepossessing appearance (made positively unpleasant by burns to the face in a fire) didn't help his self-image. His dream is to gain revenge on the world, to show everyone that he is a force to be reckoned with. To this end, he has formulated a scheme to carry out an amazing crime, and aims to recruit gifted criminals like Raikes through blackmail to help him realise it.
Raikes does not take kindly to being blackmailed; freedom to do what he likes is a major part of his dream. So one of the capers is Sarling's plot against the world; the other is Raikes' plan to free himself from Sarling's influence by murder.
Queen's Pawn has quite a complex plot for a thriller of its length, and it tends to spell out this plot in a rather heavy-handed way. This does not leave much room for background or characterisation. Some of the former is sketched in to go with Sarling's plan, which is fairly interesting. (As well as the obvious chess/manipulation reference, the title refers to this.) All in all, it is a fairly mundane thriller, typical of the early seventies.
Review number: 242
The way Queen's Pawn works is basically like a caper movie, or, rather, two caper movies stitched together. It is the story of the dreams of two men, Raikes and Sarling. Raikes dreams of regaining the ancestral home of his family, marrying and bringing up children, of trout fishing in the rivers around his land.
At the beginning of Queen's Pawn, Raikes has just about achieved his ambitions, having made a large sum of money through a series of frauds. He is about to buy back the house; he is engaged to the daughter of a local landowner. But then a tiny slip made in one of the frauds catches up with him. In the desk drawer of an office used temporarily to give substance to a non-existent company, he had left behind a catalogue from a fishing tackle manufacturer, with a mark next to an unusual float that he coveted (and bought from the proceeds of the fraud). The owner of the company on which the fraud was perpetrated found this and traced Raikes through the shop which printed the catalogue.
The company's owner was the other main character, Sarling. Sarling was the youngest in his family, and was always the one who was left out. An unprepossessing appearance (made positively unpleasant by burns to the face in a fire) didn't help his self-image. His dream is to gain revenge on the world, to show everyone that he is a force to be reckoned with. To this end, he has formulated a scheme to carry out an amazing crime, and aims to recruit gifted criminals like Raikes through blackmail to help him realise it.
Raikes does not take kindly to being blackmailed; freedom to do what he likes is a major part of his dream. So one of the capers is Sarling's plot against the world; the other is Raikes' plan to free himself from Sarling's influence by murder.
Queen's Pawn has quite a complex plot for a thriller of its length, and it tends to spell out this plot in a rather heavy-handed way. This does not leave much room for background or characterisation. Some of the former is sketched in to go with Sarling's plan, which is fairly interesting. (As well as the obvious chess/manipulation reference, the title refers to this.) All in all, it is a fairly mundane thriller, typical of the early seventies.
Friday, 26 February 1999
Victor Canning: The Doomsday Carrier (1976)
Edition: Hamlyn
Review number: 219
The Doomsday Carrier is a late seventies thriller about an unpleasant subject, one which has perhaps even more resonance now than it did twenty years ago. It is about animal experimentation and biological warfare. Charlie is a chimpanzee at a British research station who has just been injected with a modified plague bacillus, one which makes him a highly infections carrier after a three week incubation period. But then he escapes into the English countryside; he must be caught before he becomes infectious and millions die.
Canning is clearly anti both animal experimentation and biological weapons , and cynical about the purposes which governments publicly ascribe to such establishments as the fictional Fadledean. For someone writing before the eighties' rumours that AIDS was the result of a similar biological warfare experiment gone wrong, his writing is pretty prophetic. In particular, his description of the government attitude behind their successive announcements about Charlie, as he remains at large with the deadline rapidly approaching, is very convincing.
The Doomsday Carrier keeps itself well within the limits of the single-issue thriller, not going in for much in the way of characterisation (except for the gentle personality of Charlie) or plot development. By limiting his ambitions, Canning has created the novel of a craftsman rather than an artist - very competently achieved, but not particularly stunning or original.
Review number: 219
The Doomsday Carrier is a late seventies thriller about an unpleasant subject, one which has perhaps even more resonance now than it did twenty years ago. It is about animal experimentation and biological warfare. Charlie is a chimpanzee at a British research station who has just been injected with a modified plague bacillus, one which makes him a highly infections carrier after a three week incubation period. But then he escapes into the English countryside; he must be caught before he becomes infectious and millions die.
Canning is clearly anti both animal experimentation and biological weapons , and cynical about the purposes which governments publicly ascribe to such establishments as the fictional Fadledean. For someone writing before the eighties' rumours that AIDS was the result of a similar biological warfare experiment gone wrong, his writing is pretty prophetic. In particular, his description of the government attitude behind their successive announcements about Charlie, as he remains at large with the deadline rapidly approaching, is very convincing.
The Doomsday Carrier keeps itself well within the limits of the single-issue thriller, not going in for much in the way of characterisation (except for the gentle personality of Charlie) or plot development. By limiting his ambitions, Canning has created the novel of a craftsman rather than an artist - very competently achieved, but not particularly stunning or original.
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