This fast-paced thriller opens with laconic private eye Rex Carver accepting an apparently straightforward job of tracing a missing young German au pair. Never one to avoid trouble, Carver soon becomes entangled in a dangerous game of international espionage and double dealing.Although I have read only three books by Victor Canning, I have become a big fan of his writing. This book is along the lines of a James Bond thriller, although the protagonist, Rex Carver, is a private eye and not a spy. He does do some side jobs for a British secret service department. This is the first in a series of four books featuring Carver, and I look forward to reading the others.
In this book, Carver follows his assignment, and the au pair, Katerina, whom he has fallen for, to Paris, Dubrovnik, the island of Mljet, Venice and Germany. He finds that agents from Germany and Russia are also interested in her.
The plot was rather over the top for me and serpentine, but Carver's first-person narration kept me engaged. He was a delightful although flawed protagonist. I also enjoyed two of the female characters in this book, Hilda Wilkins, Carver's secretary and partner in the private detective agency, and Verité Latour-Mesmin, whose boss indirectly hired Carver to find Katerina. Verité is very cool and professional but slowly warms up to Carver's charms.
And I loved the ending of the book. That always makes a big difference to me.
See these other resources:
At the Victor Canning pages
At Simon's Book Blog
At Clothes in Books
John Higgins, who created the Victor Canning pages, which cover Canning's writings in depth, has written a book, A Rex Carver Companion, about the Rex Carver books, including background material about Canning. I have only dipped into that because this is the only Rex Carver book I have read so far, but I am enjoying it immensely.
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Publisher: Arcturus Publishing, 2011 (orig. publ. 1965)
Length: 254 pages
Format: Trade paperback
Series: Rex Carver #1
Setting: UK, France, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), Italy, and Germany
Genre: Mystery
Source: I purchased my copy
