Published
by John Higgins.
ISBN: 978-0-557-09371-7
ISBN: 978-0-557-09371-7
Rex Carver is a fictional Private
Investigator created by Victor Canning in the 1960s. This companion volume to
the Rex Carver books describes the four books that Rex Carver appears in: The
Whip Hand (1965), Doubled in Diamonds (1966), The Python Project
(1967), The Melting Man (1968.) It also describes the book
preceding the Rex Carver books, The Limbo Line (1963), which introduces
the Government agency that Carver is unwillingly drawn into working alongside.
A Rex Carver
Companion
begins with a biography of Victor Canning, an author who achieved remarkable
success and yet, fifty years later, is almost forgotten. Canning was a prolific
author who achieved a great deal in many genres and Higgins’ biography reflects
this and his admiration for Canning, while gently bursting the bubble of one or
two of Canning’s more grandiose autobiographical claims. Higgins’ analysis of
Canning’s writing is fascinating as he is skilled at bringing to the fore the
basic principles that underpin Canning’s work and Canning’s dislike of: ‘the
equal callousness of criminals and law enforcers and the way in which
bystanders, harmless if not always entirely innocent, are crushed between them.’
The
book also contains an extract of an essay written by Canning in 1960 called The
Trouble With Heroes, in which Canning takes a humorous look at the hero and
his role and declares that ‘Few authors can be hero-worshippers. That soon
goes. But all authors must be hero-manipulators.’ Ironically, five years
after writing this, Canning created the sort of hero he had gently mocked – Rex
Carver.
A Rex Carver
Companion
also publishes the draft form of a preface written by Canning for The Python
Project, which was not used when the book was published. This gives a
delightful flavour of Canning as he describes the changing view of the Ashdown
Forest that he surveys from his window as he writes the book, starting in
spring, through summer and ending in autumn and contrasts it with the exotic
foreign locations that he is visiting in his imagination in company with Rex
Carver.
The
five books that Higgins pays particular attention to all feature a Government
secret service agency that specialises in dirty tricks, which becomes known as
Birdcage because its headquarters are based in London’s Birdcage Walk, and four
of them feature Rex Carver, who is the first-person narrator of these books.
A Rex Carver
Companion
is an interesting look at Canning’s writing and a small but significant body of
his work, but it is also a fascinating insight into the development of the
crime thriller at this significant period of its growth, placing Canning into
context with authors such as Len Deighton and Ian Fleming. It is a perceptive
book, which shows the development of Canning as a writer, with his dislike for
powerful, corrupt organisations, whether funded by the Government or the
underworld, and his sympathy for the small, powerless people crushed by their
ruthlessness. It also describes how, for the first time he creates a hero who
swiftly develops the same amoral attitude to sexual encounters as Fleming’s
James Bond.
A Rex Carver
Companion
is a fascinating and very informative book.
------
Reviewer: Carol
Westron
Between 1963 and 1986 John lived and worked
in Thailand, Norway, the USA, Tanzania, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia, teaching. With
his wife Muriel, he became involved in CALL (Computer-Assisted
Language Learning) and put together a number of
innovative pieces of software, including the first versions of a program later
released as STORYBOARD, ECLIPSE, RHUBARB. In 1986 John left the British Council
and taught in the School of Education of Bristol University. He and his wife
are now retired and live in Shaftsbury in Dorset.
Carol Westron is a successful short
story writer and a Creative Writing teacher.
She is the moderator for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly
Dames. Her crime novels are set both in
contemporary and Victorian times. The
Terminal Velocity of Cats is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was
published July 2013. Her latest book The Fragility
of Poppies was published 10 June 2016.
Read a review of Carol’s latest
book
The Fragility of Poppies
The Fragility of Poppies
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