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Rex Carver #1
The Whip Hand
A 1960s London PI’s search for a missing au pair leads to sinister evil in this classic spy series opener by the author of The Rainbird Pattern . Meet Rex Carver, the suave and laconic private investigator. His job is to track down a German au pair , Katerina Saxmann, who has gone missing in Brighton. But when the security services show up at his apartment within hours of him accepting the assignment, he realizes there is far more going on. As the search leads Carver around the pleasure spots of Europe, the investigation, and his feelings for Katerina, get more complicated. But when a specter from the continent’s past rears its head, Rex discovers he might be in too deep . . . With cut-glass dialogue and panache in spades, Rex Carver is the James Bond of private investigators, perfect for fans of John le Carré and Ian Fleming. Praise for the writing of Victor “Mr. Canning’s inventiveness never flags for a moment.” — The Daily Telegraph
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2011
50 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Victor Canning
163 books59 followersVictor Canning was a prolific writer of novels and thrillers who flourished in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, but whose reputation has faded since his death in 1986. He was personally reticent, writing no memoirs and giving relatively few newspaper interviews.
Canning was born in Plymouth, Devon, the eldest child of a coach builder, Fred Canning, and his wife May, née Goold. During World War I his father served as an ambulance driver in France and Flanders, while he with his two sisters went to live in the village of Calstock ten miles north of Plymouth, where his uncle Cecil Goold worked for the railways and later became station master. After the war the family returned to Plymouth. In the mid 1920s they moved to Oxford where his father had found work, and Victor attended the Oxford Central School. Here he was encouraged to stay on at school and go to university by a classical scholar, Dr. Henderson, but the family could not afford it and instead Victor went to work as a clerk in the education office at age 16.
Within three years he had started selling short stories to boys’ magazines and in 1934, his first novel. Mr. Finchley Discovers his England, was accepted by Hodder and Stoughton and became a runaway best seller. He gave up his job and started writing full time, producing thirteen more novels in the next six years under three different names. Lord Rothermere engaged him to write for the Daily Mail, and a number of his travel articles for the Daily Mail were collected as a book with illustrations by Leslie Stead under the title Everyman's England in 1936. He also continued to write short stories.
He married Phyllis McEwen in 1935, a girl from a theatrical family whom he met while she was working with a touring vaudeville production at Weston-super-Mare. They had three daughters, Lindel born in 1939, Hilary born in 1940, and Virginia who was born in 1942, but died in infancy.
In 1940 he enlisted in the Army, and was sent for training with the Royal Artillery in Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales, where he trained alongside his friend Eric Ambler. Both were commissioned as second lieutenants in 1941. Canning worked in anti-aircraft batteries in the south of England until early 1943, when he was sent to North Africa and took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaigns. At the end of the war he was assigned to an Anglo-American unit doing experimental work with radar range-finding. It was top secret work but nothing to do with espionage, though Canning never discouraged the assumption of publishers and reviewers that his espionage stories were partly based on experience. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of major.
He resumed writing with The Chasm (1947), a novel about identifying a Nazi collaborator who has hidden himself in a remote Italian village. A film of this was planned but never finished. Canning’s next book, Panther’s Moon, was filmed as Spy Hunt, and from now on Canning was established as someone who could write a book a year in the suspense genre, have them reliably appear in book club and paperback editions on both sides of the Atlantic, be translated into the main European languages, and in many cases get filmed. He himself spent a year in Hollywood working on scripts for movies of his own books and on TV shows. The money earned from the film of The Golden Salamander (filmed with Trevor Howard) meant that Canning could buy a substantial country house with some land in Kent, Marle Place, where he lived for nearly twenty years and where his daughter continues to live now. From the mid 1950s onwards his books became more conventional, full of exotic settings, stirring action sequences and stock characters. In 1965 he began a series of four books featuring a private detective called Rex Carver, and these were among his most successful in sales terms.
He died in 1986.
Canning was born in Plymouth, Devon, the eldest child of a coach builder, Fred Canning, and his wife May, née Goold. During World War I his father served as an ambulance driver in France and Flanders, while he with his two sisters went to live in the village of Calstock ten miles north of Plymouth, where his uncle Cecil Goold worked for the railways and later became station master. After the war the family returned to Plymouth. In the mid 1920s they moved to Oxford where his father had found work, and Victor attended the Oxford Central School. Here he was encouraged to stay on at school and go to university by a classical scholar, Dr. Henderson, but the family could not afford it and instead Victor went to work as a clerk in the education office at age 16.
Within three years he had started selling short stories to boys’ magazines and in 1934, his first novel. Mr. Finchley Discovers his England, was accepted by Hodder and Stoughton and became a runaway best seller. He gave up his job and started writing full time, producing thirteen more novels in the next six years under three different names. Lord Rothermere engaged him to write for the Daily Mail, and a number of his travel articles for the Daily Mail were collected as a book with illustrations by Leslie Stead under the title Everyman's England in 1936. He also continued to write short stories.
He married Phyllis McEwen in 1935, a girl from a theatrical family whom he met while she was working with a touring vaudeville production at Weston-super-Mare. They had three daughters, Lindel born in 1939, Hilary born in 1940, and Virginia who was born in 1942, but died in infancy.
In 1940 he enlisted in the Army, and was sent for training with the Royal Artillery in Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales, where he trained alongside his friend Eric Ambler. Both were commissioned as second lieutenants in 1941. Canning worked in anti-aircraft batteries in the south of England until early 1943, when he was sent to North Africa and took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaigns. At the end of the war he was assigned to an Anglo-American unit doing experimental work with radar range-finding. It was top secret work but nothing to do with espionage, though Canning never discouraged the assumption of publishers and reviewers that his espionage stories were partly based on experience. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of major.
He resumed writing with The Chasm (1947), a novel about identifying a Nazi collaborator who has hidden himself in a remote Italian village. A film of this was planned but never finished. Canning’s next book, Panther’s Moon, was filmed as Spy Hunt, and from now on Canning was established as someone who could write a book a year in the suspense genre, have them reliably appear in book club and paperback editions on both sides of the Atlantic, be translated into the main European languages, and in many cases get filmed. He himself spent a year in Hollywood working on scripts for movies of his own books and on TV shows. The money earned from the film of The Golden Salamander (filmed with Trevor Howard) meant that Canning could buy a substantial country house with some land in Kent, Marle Place, where he lived for nearly twenty years and where his daughter continues to live now. From the mid 1950s onwards his books became more conventional, full of exotic settings, stirring action sequences and stock characters. In 1965 he began a series of four books featuring a private detective called Rex Carver, and these were among his most successful in sales terms.
He died in 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 17, 2024
A product of its time, Carver's attitude to women is somewhat prehistoric, much the same as James Bond. The story itself is slightly ridiculous but entertaining and moves along at pace. Carver does the opposite to what he's told to do but it all works out in the end. More espionage than mystery.
October 1, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in November 2000.
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.
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.
September 29, 2020
The cover says it's "a Rex Carver mystery" and the back blurb defines it as a "fast-paced thriller". Sounds good, doesn't it? However, I was genuinely bored most of the time, persevered only because I so loved Canning's "The Rainbird Pattern" and wanted to see what else he could do. I am hugely disappointed, primarily because his detective, Rex Carver, has an office in London which he promptly leaves in search of international espionage. And international espionage, unless you create interesting characters, preferably also psychology, is dead boring: men rushing around the globe, meeting up with others, exchanging meaningless bits of information, while chasing pretty girls. It's a pattern that so many similar books follow. Canning obviously also jumped on the bandwagon, presumably encouraged by his publisher or agent, without putting too much effort into it. Rex Carver goes from hotel to hotel across Europe, not returning to England. Such stuff is not for me.
The trouble is that so little Victor Canning is in print, and yet he wrote so much. Dare I buy another of his books without knowing much about it? However, if you have not read "The Rainbird Pattern", I thoroughly recommend it. Not "The Whip Hand" though.
The trouble is that so little Victor Canning is in print, and yet he wrote so much. Dare I buy another of his books without knowing much about it? However, if you have not read "The Rainbird Pattern", I thoroughly recommend it. Not "The Whip Hand" though.
October 2, 2015
Meh.
Fast-paced according to the blurb but kind of yawn-inducing for me. A lot of blathering and following people all over the place.
Fast-paced according to the blurb but kind of yawn-inducing for me. A lot of blathering and following people all over the place.
November 2, 2023
This novel is described as a Private Eye mystery, but it's really a low-key espionage thriller. Hero Rex Carver and his mission are as good an imitation of Ian Fleming's style as you'll get. SPOILER ALERT: All the Bond elements are on display: various European locales, a superhuman villain with a yacht, an assassin with a unique weapon, and two pretty women who are romantic interests for our hero (one good, one bad), a secret, megalomaniacal organization, and a climax at a fictitious Schloss by an Alpine lake. SPOILERS OVER It's mildly interesting stuff, but very conventional. Like Bond, Carver is set up as a lady killer but turns out to be a hopeless romantic, which is not a plus for a secret agent. Like the Bond books, it's more thriller than spy story, and like all books of its vintage, it suffers from a blissful lack of awareness that the teeth of British Intelligence had been pulled by the Cambridge Five (and possibly a few more never unmasked Soviet moles). Like the literary Bond, Carver is neither indestructible nor infallible, but he gets the job done in unremarkable fashion. Mildly recommended to anyone interested in a trip back to Cold War Europe.
July 31, 2024
Routine thriller, not as witty or original as his humourous early works.
December 16, 2020
The Whip Hand is another in the Arcturus Crime Classics series. Canning is an interesting person. Along with his award winning crime fiction he also wrote children's books, one trilogy of which was adapted for US television. He also has 37 citations in the most important English dictionary, after Dr. Johnson's, namely the OED.
This book was written in 1965, in the height of Ian Fleming's James Bond series the first of which was written in 1953, and it shows the influence. Rex Carver is a private detective who also takes on jobs for British secret service. He is tenacious, smart, and like Bond promiscuous. His secretary, or should I say business partner, is Hilda Wilkins also very smart.
Carver takes the seemingly easy job for Hans Stebelson of finding a German au pair, Katarina Saxmann, who has gone missing. He knows the girl left her job and moved to Brighton and just wants to know if she is alright - or does he. Find her he does and completely comes under her spell. Katarina is a Siren. She lures men with her beauty and sexual aura. She is smart, but completely amoral and feels nothing but her own passion for money for which she will do anything including stepping over the bodies who get in her way.
Her quest for money, and Rex's determination to have her, leads them into a tangled international plot, replete with spies from all the major powers who alternately try to help Rex, or kill him, or both. Rex pretends to throw in with all of them for the money, of course only being loyal to the British spies who warn him they will only go so far to protect him because the job is more important than people - which is exactly what they do.
Of course nobody is what they seem, everybody is a killer, some more dangerous than others. Some of the characters are stock, or seem stock to us now. And the body count rises as Rex figures out the truth of what's going on. Along the way he meets Verite Latour-Mesmin the gal Friday of one of the spies also paying Rex to follow Katarina and company, and she's one of the only real humans in the book. She is tasked to make his travel arrangements, and give him the help he needs. She's the one you end up rooting for.
As mentioned earlier this is a convoluted plot, replete with spies, killers, more spies out to kill Rex, international plots, and an unexpected twist. The bodies pile up but Rex manages to make it and at the end and get the girl. I'm not telling you which one.
Now let me tell you what doesn't work, or should I say seems stale in the 21st century. The Bondlike sexuality is one of the big points. I think Canning felt he had to put it in to compete with Flemming. How could you write and get published a spy novel without the sex in the 1960s? You couldn't, but I don't really think Canning's heart was in it.
What also doesn't work is the weapons part of it. The British secret service outfits him with a gun for protection, but it's a .22, and while Rex says he would have preferred a .38 he takes the .22 without protest. A .22 is absolutely worthless as personal protection unless you are up close and personal and can get in a shot at a vital organ like the heart. With adrenaline pumping or at a distance a .22, wouldn't stop a kitten. And when the chips fall, and Rex knows he is going to have to fight for his life, he chooses a .22 rifle over a .404! That is just plain stupid on the face of it. It's like taking a knife to a gunfight.
You might think I didn't like this book, but that would be incorrect. I did like it. The action moves along at a good pace. You like Rex, as a character. The story has enough complexity to keep your attention. All good things. And if that isn't enough, the paragraph in chapter seven about national character, and the media is spot on. He even speculates, rather prophetically, that China will be the dominant nation and in the future will end up ruling the world. Chilling, sixty years later.
One last little bit here. In the course of the events near the end of the book we meet a British contact named Severus, who has long, lanky, black hair. He seems to the world a bad guy, but gives his life to help Rex survive. Sound familiar Harry Potter fans? It did to me as well.
This book was written in 1965, in the height of Ian Fleming's James Bond series the first of which was written in 1953, and it shows the influence. Rex Carver is a private detective who also takes on jobs for British secret service. He is tenacious, smart, and like Bond promiscuous. His secretary, or should I say business partner, is Hilda Wilkins also very smart.
Carver takes the seemingly easy job for Hans Stebelson of finding a German au pair, Katarina Saxmann, who has gone missing. He knows the girl left her job and moved to Brighton and just wants to know if she is alright - or does he. Find her he does and completely comes under her spell. Katarina is a Siren. She lures men with her beauty and sexual aura. She is smart, but completely amoral and feels nothing but her own passion for money for which she will do anything including stepping over the bodies who get in her way.
Her quest for money, and Rex's determination to have her, leads them into a tangled international plot, replete with spies from all the major powers who alternately try to help Rex, or kill him, or both. Rex pretends to throw in with all of them for the money, of course only being loyal to the British spies who warn him they will only go so far to protect him because the job is more important than people - which is exactly what they do.
Of course nobody is what they seem, everybody is a killer, some more dangerous than others. Some of the characters are stock, or seem stock to us now. And the body count rises as Rex figures out the truth of what's going on. Along the way he meets Verite Latour-Mesmin the gal Friday of one of the spies also paying Rex to follow Katarina and company, and she's one of the only real humans in the book. She is tasked to make his travel arrangements, and give him the help he needs. She's the one you end up rooting for.
As mentioned earlier this is a convoluted plot, replete with spies, killers, more spies out to kill Rex, international plots, and an unexpected twist. The bodies pile up but Rex manages to make it and at the end and get the girl. I'm not telling you which one.
Now let me tell you what doesn't work, or should I say seems stale in the 21st century. The Bondlike sexuality is one of the big points. I think Canning felt he had to put it in to compete with Flemming. How could you write and get published a spy novel without the sex in the 1960s? You couldn't, but I don't really think Canning's heart was in it.
What also doesn't work is the weapons part of it. The British secret service outfits him with a gun for protection, but it's a .22, and while Rex says he would have preferred a .38 he takes the .22 without protest. A .22 is absolutely worthless as personal protection unless you are up close and personal and can get in a shot at a vital organ like the heart. With adrenaline pumping or at a distance a .22, wouldn't stop a kitten. And when the chips fall, and Rex knows he is going to have to fight for his life, he chooses a .22 rifle over a .404! That is just plain stupid on the face of it. It's like taking a knife to a gunfight.
You might think I didn't like this book, but that would be incorrect. I did like it. The action moves along at a good pace. You like Rex, as a character. The story has enough complexity to keep your attention. All good things. And if that isn't enough, the paragraph in chapter seven about national character, and the media is spot on. He even speculates, rather prophetically, that China will be the dominant nation and in the future will end up ruling the world. Chilling, sixty years later.
One last little bit here. In the course of the events near the end of the book we meet a British contact named Severus, who has long, lanky, black hair. He seems to the world a bad guy, but gives his life to help Rex survive. Sound familiar Harry Potter fans? It did to me as well.
September 26, 2023
Blonde Lies and Deceptions
This story has an interesting plot that kept my interest despite the tedious prose. The characters were complex and devious, which added to the story. However, the story itself was often overly wordy and drawn out.
This story has an interesting plot that kept my interest despite the tedious prose. The characters were complex and devious, which added to the story. However, the story itself was often overly wordy and drawn out.
September 22, 2019
Enjoyable mid 1960s private detective yarn with loads of intrigue and European travel from London to Brighton, Paris, Dubrovnik, the island of Mljet (which appears to be paradise), Venice and the Austrian Tyrol, as Rex Carver is set the task of following a beautiful German girl - a job he's only too pleased to undertake, while trying to unravel the motives of those who sent him and others who seemingly have the same target, but who work for other powers. Definitely a cracking read from an author I'd not heard of until I read the blog, Existential Ennui - in spite of his productivity. Sort of a cross between Harry Palmer and a Desmond Bagley hero, Carver is good company and I look forward to reading more Victor Canning.
Update: September 2019. I have now fulfilled my ambition to travel to Mljet and explore the route followed by Rex. The National Park, the Veliko Jerezo and Malo Jerezo are indeed paradise and well worth the trip by boat to get there from Dubrovnik, or in our case via the island's only hotel's motor boat from Trstenik on the Croatian mainland, an hour away across the Adriatic (thank you Tui).
Clearly some things have changed and you could no longer describe Pomina as
Update: September 2019. I have now fulfilled my ambition to travel to Mljet and explore the route followed by Rex. The National Park, the Veliko Jerezo and Malo Jerezo are indeed paradise and well worth the trip by boat to get there from Dubrovnik, or in our case via the island's only hotel's motor boat from Trstenik on the Croatian mainland, an hour away across the Adriatic (thank you Tui).
Clearly some things have changed and you could no longer describe Pomina as
nothing. Just a rough road that died out among boulders and a stony beach. There were a few bamboo-thatched sheds full of lobster pots and fishing gear...This more accurately describes Konoba at the other end of the Veliko Jerezo. Pomina is packed with small cruise ships.
September 27, 2016
The writing style in this book makes it worth the read alone. The plot isn't bad though I had a hard time keeping track of all the interested parties. Basically a private eye is hired to follow a missing au pair by a rather shady character. As time goes on the PI realises absolutely everyone is interested in this woman and her benefactor - pretty much every government and some private organisations are asking him to report back to them and/or threatening him. The protagonist has no idea what it's all about and neither did I.
The resolution is tidy and I didn't see it coming.
Worth a read.
The resolution is tidy and I didn't see it coming.
Worth a read.
Read
June 30, 2022For a detective, Rex Carver is far too susceptible to a beautiful woman. When he is asked to trace one, it is immediately obvious that he is being suckered into someone's plot, but his quarry Katherina is simply hypnotic. No matter how untrustworthy she may be, and no matter how many different governments are paying Rex to follow her around Europe, Rex keeps hoping.
Well written, yes, but I kept putting THE WHIP HAND down for something else.
Well written, yes, but I kept putting THE WHIP HAND down for something else.
January 19, 2016
It started well, along the standard lines for a gumshoe tale. MI5, CIA, Ruskies, Germans, mysterious blondes, all the classic ingredients for a bit of sleuthing but somehow about 50 pages from the end it all got very muddled and the story seemed to lose its way and simply ran out of steam. Disappointing.
December 10, 2020
3.5 stars.
A nice smooth read but not great as such.
The main character is a private eye in the mode of philip marlowe but based in London and the book is written in a amusing manner most of the time ,lots of interested parties,a international conspiracy ,a few deaths and spies galore.
Overall not bad at all unless you are expecting a Forsyth or Chandler .
A nice smooth read but not great as such.
The main character is a private eye in the mode of philip marlowe but based in London and the book is written in a amusing manner most of the time ,lots of interested parties,a international conspiracy ,a few deaths and spies galore.
Overall not bad at all unless you are expecting a Forsyth or Chandler .
September 12, 2015
A unjustifiably neglected gem of the genre, which starts slowly and finally reveals a conspiracy that could throw a continent into turmoil... and the characterisation is superb! Mr Carver is a gem and I wish all his four outings had been resurrected than the unsatisfactory half that number...
July 2, 2012
Reading this book all way through was really enjoyable. The murder story in the book was an interesting read.
November 29, 2013
Very enjoyable though has a swift conclusion
December 5, 2016
Canning's detailed descriptions of objects and characters is remarkable. One of the most under rated authors.
Want to read
February 17, 2019Synopsis: laconic PI Rex Carver has accepted an easy job, trace a German au-pair. It becomes international espionage and double dealing.
January 10, 2019
Contains many anachronisms.
May 11, 2019
Sometimes difficult to follow, but well written. Great detective mystery!
August 29, 2019
Very good detective novel. Great build up of events, characters and plot leading to a satisfactory conclusion. Recommended.
February 16, 2021
Kept me on the edge of my seat throughout! I enjoyed the cynicism and dark humour especially. I love me a good thriller and this definitely fit the bill.
December 16, 2021
There were parts of this I really enjoyed, but for me it rather fell apart in the second half
January 25, 2022
Spy novel written and set in post world war II Europe. Including all the typical spy novel elements of the time.
July 16, 2022
Review of The Whip Hand
Rex Carver is an "every mans" PI. Not perfect but dogged to the end. A great plot with plenty of twists and turns.
Rex Carver is an "every mans" PI. Not perfect but dogged to the end. A great plot with plenty of twists and turns.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews