What do you think?
Rate this book
FIRECREST
Da John Grimsters forlovede bliver slået ihjel, får den garvede agent hurtigt mistanke om, at hans egen chef i departementet for national sikkerhed står bag. Grimster har kun én ting i hævn. Da den geniale professor Dilling dør, øjner Grimster sin chance for at tage hævn over sin forhadte chef. Dilling var nemlig ved at sælge sin nye opfindelse til departementet, som er desperate efter at få fingre i den.
Efter Dillings død er det kun hans enke, der ved, hvor opfindelsen befinder sig. Problemet er bare, at Dilling har skjult svaret dybt i hendes underbevidsthed ved hjælp af hypnose, og det er nu op til Grimster at hæve hypnosen og få hemmeligheden frem. Undervejs viser det sig, at der også er andre, der er ude efter Dillings hemmelige opfindelse, og Grimster står nu også med opgaven at beskytte Dillings enke, som han kommer tættere og tættere på.
Victor Canning (1911-1986) var en britisk forfatter, der skrev et væld af romaner, som opnåede stor popularitet i både Storbritannien og udlandet. Han skrev hovedsageligt spændingsromaner, hvoraf mange er blevet oversat til fremmedsprog.
Efter Dillings død er det kun hans enke, der ved, hvor opfindelsen befinder sig. Problemet er bare, at Dilling har skjult svaret dybt i hendes underbevidsthed ved hjælp af hypnose, og det er nu op til Grimster at hæve hypnosen og få hemmeligheden frem. Undervejs viser det sig, at der også er andre, der er ude efter Dillings hemmelige opfindelse, og Grimster står nu også med opgaven at beskytte Dillings enke, som han kommer tættere og tættere på.
Victor Canning (1911-1986) var en britisk forfatter, der skrev et væld af romaner, som opnåede stor popularitet i både Storbritannien og udlandet. Han skrev hovedsageligt spændingsromaner, hvoraf mange er blevet oversat til fremmedsprog.
- GenresEspionage
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
1 person is currently reading
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 28, 2016
This was my first encounter with the works of Victor Canning but, on this evidence, I look forward to reading many more of his novels.
A scientist, Henry Dilling, dies suddenly from a heart attack just when he was on the verge of selling the plans for a laser- and radar-guided gun he has invented. Understandably, the government are keen to get hold of the plans before they can fall into enemy hands and so dispatch agent John Grimster to try to locate their whereabouts. Grimster tracks down Lily, Dilling's voluptuous young blonde girlfriend (not always very convincing, this character), and interviews her extensively. Although Lily cooperates willingly with the interrogation, Grimster knows that her account of Dilling's final day, during which he had hidden the plans for the invention, do not tally with what he knows really happened (Dilling had been under surveillance). It gradually becomes apparent that Dilling had been experimenting with hypnotism, found it facile to put Lily under and has implanted a false memory in her mind of the activities that took place on the day before his death.
With the aid of a mysterious 'firecrest' ring, Grimster succeeds in hypnotizing Lily (again, I wasn't completely convinced by this) and secures her cooperation in finding out where her boyfriend had hidden the secret plans. The two of them journey to Bedfordshire and Lily remembers that the plans were hidden in a spot now occupied by the lion enclosure at Woburn Safari Park! Grimster has to endeavour to recover the plans under cover of darkness before Harrison, an old school friend of his believed to be working for the other side, can beat him to the punch.
That is the main thrust of the story. A subsidiary story line concerns the fact that Grimster's Swedish girlfriend, Valda, died in a car crash shortly after he had announced to his work colleagues that he was intending to marry her. Grimster believes that Valda was murdered by the department because they thought she was a security risk. Grimster's boss, Sir John Maserfield, tries to dissuade Grimster against this line of reasoning. However, Grimster hypnotizes one of his colleagues and discovers that he was right: Sir John did order Valda's death. As an act of revenge, Grimster resolves to murder Sir John. These two story lines collide excitingly in a satisfying conclusion.
The first thing to say about this book is that Canning writes very well, in a cold, clear unsentimental manner. Like the work of his contemporaries Nigel Balchin, Eric Ambler and Nevil Shute, Canning hooks the reader from the opening pages of the book and never lets go. I am reminded of what Clive James once said about Balchin, Ambler and Shute: "It doesn't occur to any of them to pursue uncertainty". On this evidence, that statement also applies to Canning. I would think he was lucky enough to be one of a rare breed: an absolutely natural writer. His book is very well observed, full of clever little incidental details and although the story takes a while to get up to top speed the reader never loses patience with it because there is always something going on to maintain one's interest.
With regard to similarities with the work of other writers, 'Firecrest' reminded me most closely of the late work of Ambler, a man, whom, incidentally, served alongside Canning in the Royal Artillery during World War Two. Whilst reading this book, I kept thinking of Ambler's novel 'A Kind of Anger', a book very much admired by me because of its unconventional structure and disobedience of the rules of the standard thriller. I also detected traces at times of the novels of Geoffrey Household and Roy Fuller, in terms of both the prose style and some of the psychological themes at play in 'Firecrest'. But this is not to denigrate Canning's talents and achievements: he clearly had a style very much his own and, 50 pages into my second of his novels, 'the Rainbird Pattern', it is one that very much appeals to this reader.
A scientist, Henry Dilling, dies suddenly from a heart attack just when he was on the verge of selling the plans for a laser- and radar-guided gun he has invented. Understandably, the government are keen to get hold of the plans before they can fall into enemy hands and so dispatch agent John Grimster to try to locate their whereabouts. Grimster tracks down Lily, Dilling's voluptuous young blonde girlfriend (not always very convincing, this character), and interviews her extensively. Although Lily cooperates willingly with the interrogation, Grimster knows that her account of Dilling's final day, during which he had hidden the plans for the invention, do not tally with what he knows really happened (Dilling had been under surveillance). It gradually becomes apparent that Dilling had been experimenting with hypnotism, found it facile to put Lily under and has implanted a false memory in her mind of the activities that took place on the day before his death.
With the aid of a mysterious 'firecrest' ring, Grimster succeeds in hypnotizing Lily (again, I wasn't completely convinced by this) and secures her cooperation in finding out where her boyfriend had hidden the secret plans. The two of them journey to Bedfordshire and Lily remembers that the plans were hidden in a spot now occupied by the lion enclosure at Woburn Safari Park! Grimster has to endeavour to recover the plans under cover of darkness before Harrison, an old school friend of his believed to be working for the other side, can beat him to the punch.
That is the main thrust of the story. A subsidiary story line concerns the fact that Grimster's Swedish girlfriend, Valda, died in a car crash shortly after he had announced to his work colleagues that he was intending to marry her. Grimster believes that Valda was murdered by the department because they thought she was a security risk. Grimster's boss, Sir John Maserfield, tries to dissuade Grimster against this line of reasoning. However, Grimster hypnotizes one of his colleagues and discovers that he was right: Sir John did order Valda's death. As an act of revenge, Grimster resolves to murder Sir John. These two story lines collide excitingly in a satisfying conclusion.
The first thing to say about this book is that Canning writes very well, in a cold, clear unsentimental manner. Like the work of his contemporaries Nigel Balchin, Eric Ambler and Nevil Shute, Canning hooks the reader from the opening pages of the book and never lets go. I am reminded of what Clive James once said about Balchin, Ambler and Shute: "It doesn't occur to any of them to pursue uncertainty". On this evidence, that statement also applies to Canning. I would think he was lucky enough to be one of a rare breed: an absolutely natural writer. His book is very well observed, full of clever little incidental details and although the story takes a while to get up to top speed the reader never loses patience with it because there is always something going on to maintain one's interest.
With regard to similarities with the work of other writers, 'Firecrest' reminded me most closely of the late work of Ambler, a man, whom, incidentally, served alongside Canning in the Royal Artillery during World War Two. Whilst reading this book, I kept thinking of Ambler's novel 'A Kind of Anger', a book very much admired by me because of its unconventional structure and disobedience of the rules of the standard thriller. I also detected traces at times of the novels of Geoffrey Household and Roy Fuller, in terms of both the prose style and some of the psychological themes at play in 'Firecrest'. But this is not to denigrate Canning's talents and achievements: he clearly had a style very much his own and, 50 pages into my second of his novels, 'the Rainbird Pattern', it is one that very much appeals to this reader.
March 19, 2022
This is a book that will stay with me for quite a while. For one thing, John le Carre is much lauded and in print while Victor Canning is not; it is as simple as that. Another thing is that I have never fished, never taken an interest, yet so much appreciate what Canning has done in this novel: created a hugely exciting moment around fishing for salmon! Canning's interest in hypnosis is well familiar to me from a previous novel I read: "The Rainbird Pattern which I also recommend. Hypnosis matters here too.
Why he is not in print though? He wrote so many books, presumably some duds among them. Yet I for one will continue to hunt out copies of his books. They are so interesting, unusual!
Why he is not in print though? He wrote so many books, presumably some duds among them. Yet I for one will continue to hunt out copies of his books. They are so interesting, unusual!
November 29, 2015
Victor Canning wrote some superb thrillers in the 1960s and 70s. Firecrest is part of a series of books about a governmental Department that operates shadily to obtain useful information and secrets without the inconvenience of actually having to pay for them or leave anyone alive to tell the tale. This essential, yet indecent work involves "murder, blackmail, fraud, theft and betrayal", and the Department's very existence would have been denied by the authorities. The Department is headed by Sir John Maserfield and his protege is Grimster, an aptly named world-weary operative whose task is to find secret papers relating to a new weapon, hidden by its inventor, Professor Henry Dilling, just prior to his inconvenient death from a heart attack. Obviously the Department don't care two hoots for the inventor and Dilling only hid the stuff because he had a feeling they weren't going to reward him for his efforts. He was right. The only means of obtaining the location of the papers now seems to be through gaining the confidence of the inventor's beautiful but intellectually challenged blonde girlfriend. Grimster sets about this task with relish, happy to use the girl's innocence and trust in order to fulfill his remit.
That this all takes place at a government establishment and fishing lodge between Chittlehamholt and Eggesford in Mid Devon is a bonus to those of us brought up in the vicinity unaware what dirty work was taking place just up the road from The Fox and Hounds Country Hotel. One of the protagonists is called Coppelstone [sic] to boot. Chumleigh even gets a mention as a possible lair of hairdressers. South Molton is rightly dismissed as grey. Canning knew his Devon.
Grimster knows the game. He is only too aware that he and the blonde are likely to be terminated with extreme prejudice once he delivers the info and sets out to try and obtain the buried briefcase before his childhood friend and nemesis, Harrison, can do so and thus get the lovely Lily a reward of survival and true value from the inventor's will. Expect lots of interesting detail about fly fishing on the river Taw and, bizarrely, hypnosis as Grimster stuggles with demons that arise from the certain knowledge that the Department previously bumped off his own fiance, sparking an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
That this all takes place at a government establishment and fishing lodge between Chittlehamholt and Eggesford in Mid Devon is a bonus to those of us brought up in the vicinity unaware what dirty work was taking place just up the road from The Fox and Hounds Country Hotel. One of the protagonists is called Coppelstone [sic] to boot. Chumleigh even gets a mention as a possible lair of hairdressers. South Molton is rightly dismissed as grey. Canning knew his Devon.
Grimster knows the game. He is only too aware that he and the blonde are likely to be terminated with extreme prejudice once he delivers the info and sets out to try and obtain the buried briefcase before his childhood friend and nemesis, Harrison, can do so and thus get the lovely Lily a reward of survival and true value from the inventor's will. Expect lots of interesting detail about fly fishing on the river Taw and, bizarrely, hypnosis as Grimster stuggles with demons that arise from the certain knowledge that the Department previously bumped off his own fiance, sparking an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
August 11, 2018
Muy aburrido y nada original. Eso de obtener una información que esta guardada en la mente y solo se puede obtener por hipnosis no era nuevo ni siquiera en 1971. pero se podría salvar con una buena narración, pero este no es el caso. Me costo mucho terminarlo quizás hubiera sido una buena idea para un cuento. uno de los títulos mas flojos que leí del séptimo circulo.
February 4, 2019
Search for hidden papers; hypnosis to get information from people who know where they are but can't or won't tell; leads to suspense and murder. Interesting ending.
July 22, 2020
enjoyed Canning in the 80's.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews