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Queen's Pawn
Handsome, brilliant young conman Andrew Raikes is set to swap the hustle for a life of quiet luxury and independence in the English countryside. Then, barely two months in to his new life, a letter arrives from a man even more cunning and ruthless than himself. Raikes is soon blackmailed into carrying out one final heist: a crime more audacious and dazzling than anything he has attempted before. Can he pull it off? And will he be able to free himself from the clutches of his blackmailer?
Victor Canning weaves riches, glamour and darkness through the world of 1960's Britain to create this complex, gripping and highly-readable crime thriller.
Victor Canning weaves riches, glamour and darkness through the world of 1960's Britain to create this complex, gripping and highly-readable crime thriller.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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158 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 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 16, 2021
نصاب محترف يريد أن يتوب ويحقق أحلامه البسيطة، إلا أن يظهر شخص غامض يعرف كل أسراره السابقة ويجبره على الانخراط معه في عملية سطو
الرواية متوسطة المستوى، بها بعض الثغرات، ففي أحد الفصول يضع البطل منديل في فم المبتز وهو يختطفه، وفي المشهد التالي نرى المبتز يجري حوار معه .. النهاية أيضا سخيفة بعض الشئ
الرواية متوسطة المستوى، بها بعض الثغرات، ففي أحد الفصول يضع البطل منديل في فم المبتز وهو يختطفه، وفي المشهد التالي نرى المبتز يجري حوار معه .. النهاية أيضا سخيفة بعض الشئ
July 3, 2022
رواية متوسطة المستوى
فكرتها جيدة لكن الجزء الاخير وايضا نهايتها لم تعجبنى
وكأن الكاتب كل ما أراده ان يؤكد فقط مقولة ان الجريمة لا تفيد وفعل ذلك باحداث وبحبكة ضعيفة
لم تعجبنى جدا لكنى غير نادم على قراءتها
فكرتها جيدة لكن الجزء الاخير وايضا نهايتها لم تعجبنى
وكأن الكاتب كل ما أراده ان يؤكد فقط مقولة ان الجريمة لا تفيد وفعل ذلك باحداث وبحبكة ضعيفة
لم تعجبنى جدا لكنى غير نادم على قراءتها
December 21, 2014
نجمتين بس عشان فكرة القصة
ضعيفة الحبكة من وجهة نظري
ضعيفة الحبكة من وجهة نظري
August 1, 2024
القصه كانت ماشية حلو لغايه اخر كام صفحة..
النعاية سخيفة الصراحة ، و كأنها كتبت علي عجل (متكروتة)
النعاية سخيفة الصراحة ، و كأنها كتبت علي عجل (متكروتة)
February 25, 2016
Brilliant story - very well conceived, what more can I say! Really enjoyed it.
January 12, 2018
رايكس نصاب محترف يقرر التوقف والاعتزال ويظهر له شخص محتفظ بكل عملياته القذر ليجبر للعمل لحسابه فيقرر رايكس قتله والاعتزل مره اخرى فهل ينجح
الاحداث سريعه ولكن النهاية لم تعجبنى والقصه حلوه
الاحداث سريعه ولكن النهاية لم تعجبنى والقصه حلوه
August 17, 2019
Read in Danish.
4 minus
4 minus
April 22, 2020
عجبتنى الحقيقة ونهاية تليق بالموقف
February 28, 2021
الصياغة سلسلة ، والاحداث ممتعة .. لكني لم احب الشخصيات ماعدا -برينزر - اما النهاية كانت مقنعة ومرضية جدا بالنسبة لي .
May 13, 2021
أقل بكثير مما توقعت
August 26, 2022
رائعة جداً
رايكس المجرم الذي أراد ان يتوقف ويعود إلى بلدته ويتزوج ظهر له سارلنج الذي أجبره على القيام بعملية أخيرة فما كانت النتيجة ؟
رايكس المجرم الذي أراد ان يتوقف ويعود إلى بلدته ويتزوج ظهر له سارلنج الذي أجبره على القيام بعملية أخيرة فما كانت النتيجة ؟
October 25, 2023
الحبكة ضعيفة و النهاية سيئة وتفاصيل كثيرة الكاتب سقطت منه أو يمكن الخطأ عند المترجم مش عارفة.
لكن تعتبر مسلية تخلص في سكة سفر مثلاً
لكن تعتبر مسلية تخلص في سكة سفر مثلاً
April 20, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in April 1999.
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.
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.
November 11, 2014
- القصة جميلة وتحوى بوليسية خاصة بمنتصف القرن العشرين ، عملية سرقة و ابتزاز و مغامرة وسط البحر وصداقة وحب و تحالفات ، كل هذا فى القصة ، الا ان النهاية كانت غير منطقية بالمرة ، لن احرقها وسأترك للقارىء ان يحكم بنفسه
July 29, 2021
I picked this up because it was suggested as a good thriller novel by some friends, and I enjoyed it. The plot was ok, it was not a great story, and perfect for a medium-budget movie.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews