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Rex Carver #2
Doubled in Diamonds
Rex Carver is a private-eye based in London, but his work can take him far from there. This case leads him to Ireland and to France, whilst he is trying to find a man left a legacy by an aunt. The man is involved with a large haul of diamonds, and Rex has to deal with people about to trade these millions of dollars worth of stolen diamonds for heroin and opium. Two of these people are attractive twin Chinese sisters Suma and Lian, agents of the People's Republic of China...
- GenresDetective
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
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26 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 10, 2019
Doubled In Diamonds is the 2nd Rex Carver mystery by Victor Canning. There are 4 books in this series and this is the 1st I've read. Carver is a private detective in London and like many others, struggles to make ends meet. In some ways, he reminds me of Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike.
The story starts off relatively simply, Carver's assistant, Hilda Wilkins, books him for an easy job, finding Arnold Finch to let him know about a 5,000 pound inheritance. As he investigates, he finds that there is more to Finches disappearance that meets the eye. He might have been involved in a previous diamond heist and might not wish to be found.
Carver travels to Ireland and becomes involved with Chinese spies, two twins who want also to hire his services to help acquire the diamonds. He also get caught up by British intelligence and the British police and must try to wend his way between these competing interests and at the same time try to save a young woman from both the bad guys and the police.
I enjoyed this story very much. Carver is a sensible, reasonably smart character and I really liked his assistant / partner. I hope she plays more of a role in the other stories. The story moved along at a nice steady pace and had nice little twists and turns. Very interesting introduction to the Rex Carver mysteries. (4 stars)
The story starts off relatively simply, Carver's assistant, Hilda Wilkins, books him for an easy job, finding Arnold Finch to let him know about a 5,000 pound inheritance. As he investigates, he finds that there is more to Finches disappearance that meets the eye. He might have been involved in a previous diamond heist and might not wish to be found.
Carver travels to Ireland and becomes involved with Chinese spies, two twins who want also to hire his services to help acquire the diamonds. He also get caught up by British intelligence and the British police and must try to wend his way between these competing interests and at the same time try to save a young woman from both the bad guys and the police.
I enjoyed this story very much. Carver is a sensible, reasonably smart character and I really liked his assistant / partner. I hope she plays more of a role in the other stories. The story moved along at a nice steady pace and had nice little twists and turns. Very interesting introduction to the Rex Carver mysteries. (4 stars)
June 5, 2018
One of his Rex Carver series--just re-read it for the first time in decades, and it seems pretty dated to me now, but then I much prefer Canning's stand-alone novels to the Carver series.
March 16, 2020
P.I. Rex Carver is hired to find the heir of a minor fortune and ends up chasing a fortune in diamonds with climax on a boat on a French canal close to Champagne.
You may call Victor Canning James Bond + intelligence and humour. You will never call his thrillers (of whom there are a lot!) funny, but it is intelligent reading, yet human and interesting. You might nearly guess, that he was a good friend of Eric Ambler!
The book is very wellwritten (in 1966) and the age shows in the atmosphere -the new hard ruthless evil of today's novels is happily absent! I like it and have read several of Canning's novel, which are all recommended.
You may call Victor Canning James Bond + intelligence and humour. You will never call his thrillers (of whom there are a lot!) funny, but it is intelligent reading, yet human and interesting. You might nearly guess, that he was a good friend of Eric Ambler!
The book is very wellwritten (in 1966) and the age shows in the atmosphere -the new hard ruthless evil of today's novels is happily absent! I like it and have read several of Canning's novel, which are all recommended.
June 3, 2020
Rex Carver has his hands full when he's enlisted to go undercover in the middle a a big diamonds for heroin deal involving a pair of Chinese twins, both beautiful and devious, along with cast of ruthless characters. Pretty good.
May 18, 2024
Very entertaining stuff …
June 16, 2022
"Double Diamonds" made a promising start with Rex Carver looking to find the benefactor of will only to discover he was involved in a diamond heist. Unfortunately like a lot of these type of books it tailed off as the author attempts to tie up the loose ends but misses the target with unrealistic premise.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews