Dress Down Sunday: The Whip Hand by Victor Canning


published 1965


LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES



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When he had finished with the golf balls, he stripped off his shirt and trousers and gave himself fifteen minutes’ callisthenics, handsprings and front and back somersaults and three times round the grass plot walking on his hands. He was as brown as a mild Havana from suntan and there wasn’t a hint of sweat on him. He finished his exercises, said something to the deckhand, and then the wonder boy was off, trotting down the hillside. I watched him, catching a glimpse of his black briefs now and again as he light-heartedly leapt the odd six-foot bush that got in his way. He reached the water’s edge directly below, dived in and was swimming towards the yacht in a fast crawl, a spout of foam going up behind him as though he had a ten horse-power marine engine fixed to his backside...



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[Later] An hour later Siegfried appeared. He was wearing bathing trunks and white sandals and he joined them by the willow and did a few press-ups and back-flips.


commentary: Yet again TracyK at Bitter Tea and Mystery is to blame – she hasn’t yet done a blogpost on this book, but she read it in January and mentioned it, and next thing I know I’ve downloaded it and read it over a quiet evening. Well – quiet for me, not for protagonist Rex Carver, a private investigator who does jobs on the side for British Intelligence. This is the first of a series of books about him.

He is employed to follow a young German girl, Katerina, who has left her job as an au pair: a family friend 'merely wishes to check that she is all right'. We all know it isn’t going to be as simple as that, there is more to this story, and of course the intelligence services are involved. Rex goes down to Brighton to track her down, and checks on her welfare by dating her, kissing her, and rather falling in love with her. Then she disappears – the first of several times in the book. But Rex is always able to find her: either because she leaves him a note, or because as part of the action he starts to work for several other organizations who are looking for her, and all have their resources. Why are all these people quite so keen to find her? It has to be said that the reason, when it comes, is wholly unexpected. It’s best to not know too much about the plot, as it came as a complete surprise to me.

Carver, Katerina, and a number of other key characters travel all over Europe – Paris, Yugoslavia and Venice – in that 60s thriller manner. I can’t say I always knew what was going on – not helped by Carver telling lies (imagine!) to other people so I was never sure if I had missed something, or he was just making it up. I never understood how he made contact with any of his undercover colleagues while out in the field – I got caught out over and over again when the revelation came.

So yes – an excellent 60s thriller, highly enjoyable: with a fairly extraordinary climax, and the best use of a false leg in any book ever. (Yes, better than Robert Galbraith's Career of Evil.)

No discussion of Victor Canning is complete without bringing in John Higgins and his Victor Canning website. As the (also excellent) Existential Ennui site describes it:
By far the best place on the web to read about Victor Canning is John Higgins's Victor Canning pages, which is the kind of exhaustive site one wishes all forgotten, overlooked or otherwise under-appreciated authors could lay claim to.
Apparently John Higgins actually answered questions on Canning’s Birdcage series on Mastermind in 2009.

John visited my blog after I featured The Rainbird Pattern (the best Canning book I have read, a fine novel in anyone’s canon, and one of my best books of 2016) and, in his kind and knowledgeable way, was able to direct me to all mentions of bedjackets in Canning’s books (see the comments under the post). Regular readers will know that that is the way to my heart… here it is in Whip Hand:
She looked nice sitting up in bed, her dark hair tied back at the nape of her neck with a ribbon, a little bed jacket demurely buttoned close up to her neck.
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John writes very entertainingly about this book on his blog (though near the end there is, in a glancing way, more about the plot than I am revealing – but then he is pointing out that his clue is all over the jacket of an early edition of the book. It is very much a spoiler cover). He discusses Canning’s, and Carver’s, attitudes to women – which I found most interesting too.

There is a lot of comment on women which is very much of its time, and has to be judged in its contemporary context, and a lot of undressing and wearing skimpy bikinis - but then the passage above shows that men have their moments too.

But there are three main women in the story – Carver’s secretary Wilkins (a regular in this series I gather), the search object Katerina, and a French helper called Verite. All three are strong women, intriguing, independent and fascinating. Carver’s relations with them are unusual and well-delineated – I was very impressed.

There are some very enjoyable lines in the book – Canning was very witty:
[of an explanation] It held water if you didn’t have far to carry it.
“There’s nothing you can do. The wheel started spinning some time ago. I’ve just got to wait and see where the ball finishes.”
I was surprised to see so many reviews for this fairly niche thriller on amazon, but that turns out to be because most of them are about the Dick Francis book, Whip Hand, apparently an easy mistake to make. This book has no connection with horse-racing.

There is an odd connection to, of all things, an Agatha Christie book, but I will say no more.

And, I look forward to hearing what Tracy thought of the book in due course. 























Comments

  1. I remember Victor Canning's three children's books - in fact I'd assumed he was a children's author as I didn't know what else he'd written, but this book / series sounds good. It's funny how things read in childhood stick with you - I can clearly remember an article in Puffin Post in which Victor Canning explained where he got the idea for 'The Runaways' - he asked his wife for three words, and she said 'thick, thin and long'. I enjoyed those books very much because they all had animals or birds in them as part of the story.

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    1. I don't remember any Victor Canning children's books, Ann, but I most certainly remember Puffin Post, a very important part of my childhood, how I loved that magazine, and being a member of the Puffin Club. I will have to look up The Runaways...

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  2. This sounds such fun! On holiday last summer I found a Victor Canning novel, The Scorpio Letters, among a couple of shelves of books for sale in the English church on Lake Como and snapped it up. Haven't read it yet.

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    1. Oh you must read it and report back! If ever there was an author whom one used to find on the 'abandoned paperback' shelves of holiday cottages in the 70s and 80s it would be Victor Canning - I bet that one had been there a long time.

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    2. Will do. I'm surprised given how good he is that I'd never heard of him until you reviewed the Rainbird Pattern.

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    3. It was a relevation to me... I had always thought he was one of the pack...

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  3. This really does sound like a fun thriller, Moira. And I always appreciate well-crafted wit in a story. I actually need to spotlight a Victor Canning novel on my blog and still haven't done that yet...

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    1. Oh yes, you must pick one out and do it, Margot: I think you would enjoy, and there is always plenty to say about his books!

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  4. I am glad you liked this as well as I did, Moira. (and thanks for the shoutout). I thought of you as soon as I saw the bed jacket mention, and I did go back and check to see if that was the one that Higgins had pointed out in the comments.

    Victor Canning is quickly making it to being one of my favorite authors. I agree with you on John Higgins' site, Moira. I have purchased a paperback titled A Rex Carver Companion by John Higgins and have enjoyed what I have read of it. I don't like to know too much about books in advance so haven't read it through.

    And Rainbird Pattern is my favorite of the Canning books I have read so far.

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    1. So with you on Rainbird! I don't think I have read any other Rex Carver books, I think they have been Birdcage till now. But would certainly read another, so I may yet need the Companion!
      Will you be reviewing Whip Hand? I would love to read your thoughts. I found it difficult to write too much about the plot, because I didn't want to spoiler the huge revelation of what it is they are all getting so worked up about - it came as a complete surprise to me, and I wouldn't have wanted to know in advance. I am guessing you would feel the same.

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    2. I agree, a hard one to review, and it would be easy to spoil the story. It has so many elements that are difficult to describe. But Canning always writes so well I fall under his spell. Anyway, yes, I will be reviewing it as best I can, I would never pass up a chance to praise his writing and talent.

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  5. Arcturus reprinted some of Canning's Rex Carver books a while back and I lapped them up. They are good, undemanding fun, and wonderfully of their period (the plot points that you don't mention do date the story as well--these particular villains turned up every other week on ITC films series like THE SAINT and THE CHAMPIONS!) I'm rather coming to the opinion that Canning is one of those rather unlucky authors who somehow managed to miss the boat for no really obvious reason. He never had much luck with big screen adaptions--the Hitchcock movie was the director's last and didn't do anything for Canning, I suspect. Canning wrote an episode of the fine late '60s TV thriller series MAN IN A SUITCASE, and its beaten up, disgraced spy-turned-private-eye makes it feel a bit like an unofficial Carver story.

    ggary

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    1. I read it on Kindle, but the Arcturus editions do look very nice.
      Yes, the more I read of him, the more surprised I am that he didn't make it to superstar status with endless films etc. He has a depth and a nuance that is really striking, and means the books survive the fact that some of the trappings are out of date.

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  6. Thanks for all the kind words.

    I have put a cross link to this site on my page about the book: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/canning/whiphand.html

    John Higgins

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    1. Thank you for all your work on the site, as well as your individual comments to me! I do recommend this site to all readers...

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  7. I remember a friend of my husband asking for a book to read in hospital, I gave him "The finger of Saturn" by Victor Canning. He loved it and asked for more books by VC. I also remember several other VC books loaned to friends which were never returned because they enjoyed them so much. I'm glad because VC was incapable of writing a dull book.

    What is left on my bookshelves by VC:

    The finger of Saturn;
    Polycarp's Progress ("Victor Canning's future as an entertaining writer is, I dare to prophesy, assured"
    says Punch on the blurb...);
    Mr Finchley discovers his England (will never loan this book because I love it so much) so off to read this again.

    Loved your post.

    Sue

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    1. Thanks Sue, and thanks for the kind words. Polycarp's Progress sounds intriguing, and that book and Mr Finchley sound very different from the thrillers. But I would at least try anything by him, he's such a good writer.

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  8. Not tried him yet. I have some of the early Rainbird books on the pile, maybe 2019!

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    1. I think you'd like him - definitely of his time, and not as dark as some of your choices, but he is a real tough guy, with some nourish adventures there...

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