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House Of Cards
Former prize fighter Reno Davis, an American at loose ends in Paris, takes a job as guardian and protector of young Paul de Villemont, son of an aristocratic family in decline. But things are not as simple as they first appear. The boy is withdrawn and fearful, while his mother is beautiful, neurotic, and perhaps dangerous. Within the barred and shuttered de Villemont mansion there are dangerous forces, secrets that threaten not only young Paul, but Davis as well. House Of Cards is a love story, a tale of self discover, a story of international intrigue, and a memorable thriller.
- GenresMystery
341 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Ellin
162 books40 followersStanley Bernard Ellin was a mystery writer of short stories and novels. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award three times and the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere once, and in 1981 he was awarded with the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 17, 2018
A rollicking good time
August 16, 2022
My first encounter with Stanley Ellin, almost gave up on this one about 1/4 into it. But, something was telling me to keep going, maybe the author’s style. The main character, Reno had character. By that I mean he was really a good guy, an American amongst a bunch of stuck up French aristocrats. I was rewarded as I progressed further and the suspense was awesome. The book really got going halfway through and I could hardly put it down. The ending was fantastic. I will have to look up more of Ellin’s books.
August 17, 2020
A pretty well written thriller from 1967, by an author who was an award winning mystery/thriller writer in the 80's. Stands up well over time. Good characterization and interesting, evolving plot. I enjoyed the setting, in France. Worth reading. I'd give it 3.5 to 3.7.
December 30, 2019
I read this while having the flu so that may have played in a role in such a low grade. But as far as the book, it's rather surprising however that this title is written by the same author of "The Eighth Circle", which is amazing. Poor dialogue, poor characters and it had a liberal ideology to boot which is ironic because the only reason I read a book published in 1967 was to avoid that ish! I guess I'll say that it was better than throwing up. So there is that. House of Cards...One star.
December 31, 2023
A bloated Sixties international thriller about a fascist plot in Europe. The book is set mainly in Paris, but it treks to other European locales. The main characters are an American former boxer and aspiring writer (Reno Davis), a blonde American heiress (Anne de Villemont), and her preteen son (Paul), whom Reno is unexpectedly hired to tutor and protect. Surrounding them like a toxic cloud is a retinue of right-wing fascists bent on world domination. They're assembling weapons (e.g., machine guns) for their upcoming coup attempt, and anyone who seems to cross paths with Anne ends up murdered.
Goodreads lists this book as 340 pages, but the Kindle edition is more than double that length, easily twice as long as a book like this should be. Ellin dragged this one out, forcing his characters into a dreary trip from Paris to Venice to Rome without money or identification papers.
As thrillers go, it's got all the accoutrements of the genre, but the paranoid plot is vague and lacks the technical details that might have made it credible. Kingsley Amis famously reviewed another 60s thriller by Len Deighton called The Ipcress File: “It's actually quite good if you stop worrying about what's going on." The same is true of this book. Ellin is a capable, easygoing writer, and the pages turn themselves. I was never bored, but I often wondered why the narrator didn't have sense to simply walk away.
I also wondered why Ellin didn't do a better job at character development. Unfortunately, he chose to cloud Anne's character in mystery; the result is that she's an enigma. The romance that quickly develops between Reno and Anne is inexplicable. Paul's character is also flat; all we know of him is that he's a child. Ellin apparently doesn't do children well; he spends more time describing the decor.
And most problematic is Reno's character. The book was published in 1967, but its toxic masculinity is a stubborn holdover from the days of Hemingway, Chandler, and Spillane. Reno threatens to wallop Anne several times if she doesn't "shut up and follow orders." In one scene, he disrobes a teenager and threatens to rape her to elicit vital information from her. I suppose this brutish behavior is typical of the "hardboiled" genre, but it often seems depraved or sociopathic. Ellin, a classy writer who was bestowed a Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1981, should have known better.
The book was adapted into a bland movie in 1968 starring George Peppard, Inger Stevens, and Orson Welles, who at that point was taking villainous supporting roles whenever he needed the money. The movie was gorgeously shot on location in Europe, features a nice climax at the Colosseum in Rome, and has a wonderful music score by Francis Lai, who won an Oscar for his music for Love Story in 1970. (You can watch the movie here on YouTube; the title sequence, which is shot on the Seine, is definitely worth checking out just for Lai’s music.)
In 1971, former investigative reporter and debut novelist Frederick Forsyth took elements of the OAS plot from House of Cards and turned it into a worldwide bestseller called The Day of the Jackal, a more credible suspense thriller that inspired two hit movies. Suggest you read that one instead.
Goodreads lists this book as 340 pages, but the Kindle edition is more than double that length, easily twice as long as a book like this should be. Ellin dragged this one out, forcing his characters into a dreary trip from Paris to Venice to Rome without money or identification papers.
As thrillers go, it's got all the accoutrements of the genre, but the paranoid plot is vague and lacks the technical details that might have made it credible. Kingsley Amis famously reviewed another 60s thriller by Len Deighton called The Ipcress File: “It's actually quite good if you stop worrying about what's going on." The same is true of this book. Ellin is a capable, easygoing writer, and the pages turn themselves. I was never bored, but I often wondered why the narrator didn't have sense to simply walk away.
I also wondered why Ellin didn't do a better job at character development. Unfortunately, he chose to cloud Anne's character in mystery; the result is that she's an enigma. The romance that quickly develops between Reno and Anne is inexplicable. Paul's character is also flat; all we know of him is that he's a child. Ellin apparently doesn't do children well; he spends more time describing the decor.
And most problematic is Reno's character. The book was published in 1967, but its toxic masculinity is a stubborn holdover from the days of Hemingway, Chandler, and Spillane. Reno threatens to wallop Anne several times if she doesn't "shut up and follow orders." In one scene, he disrobes a teenager and threatens to rape her to elicit vital information from her. I suppose this brutish behavior is typical of the "hardboiled" genre, but it often seems depraved or sociopathic. Ellin, a classy writer who was bestowed a Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1981, should have known better.
The book was adapted into a bland movie in 1968 starring George Peppard, Inger Stevens, and Orson Welles, who at that point was taking villainous supporting roles whenever he needed the money. The movie was gorgeously shot on location in Europe, features a nice climax at the Colosseum in Rome, and has a wonderful music score by Francis Lai, who won an Oscar for his music for Love Story in 1970. (You can watch the movie here on YouTube; the title sequence, which is shot on the Seine, is definitely worth checking out just for Lai’s music.)
In 1971, former investigative reporter and debut novelist Frederick Forsyth took elements of the OAS plot from House of Cards and turned it into a worldwide bestseller called The Day of the Jackal, a more credible suspense thriller that inspired two hit movies. Suggest you read that one instead.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews