29. The Scorpio Letters by Victor Canning

I found a great used bookstore in Vancouver (ABC books on W. Broadway near Granville, right by the bus stop). Whoever is buying books for this place knows their stuff. They had such a good and organized collection that I was drawn to some of the recommended or featured books. There was a stack of paperbacks by Victor Canning, that had cool looking covers, classic '70s and 80s British crime editions from houses like Pan. I grabbed the one with the bullet-holed aviator glasses on the cover and wasn't disappointed.

The Scorpio Letters starts out with a description of a well-dressed man in a richly decorated office in a villa somewhere on the coast of Italy. He is going through a series of files and writing a letter for each one. All the letters sealed and addressed, but then put into a single, larger envelope in which they are mailed to England. There, a working class Italian immigrant posts the letters. That middleman dies by accident with the letters still in his pocket. The police deliver the letters by hand to each of the recipients to find out what they can. Everyone denies they know anything about it and take the letters.

Enter our hero, a young, adventuresome British guy. Ruggedly handsome, good with his hands and with an independent streak, George Constantine is cut right out of the Desmond Bagley mold ("He was thirty, a big man, built like a full-back, sandy-haired with a sun-burnt, square, almost pugnacious face."). He is back in England, visiting his adoptive parents. It turns out his adoptive father is one of the letter recipients. He admits that he has been expertly blackmailed for over a decade, since a brief affair as a young man. He finally reveals this info because he believes the death of the letter-posting middleman means the end of the blackmail. Our hero suspects a more sophisticated operation and decides to follow up.

Trouble, of course, ensues. He meets an attractive young woman whose mother was also being blackmailed. The two of them bicker lightly, become attracted to each other and follow the trail of the letters through France to Italy.

Canning doesn't have the subtlety and depth of character that Gilbert can command, but the story is strong and moves forward well. He builds a cool criminal network and populates it with some interesting, realistic baddies. The hero relied on luck too many times to get out of deadly situations. I would have liked to have seen a bit more application of specific skill (which you do get with Bagley), but there is enough here that I'll definitely be checking out some more Victor Canning books. An excellent discovery.

46. The Runaways by Victor Canning

This is so far the book of the year for me, possibly going into my all-time pantheon.  I found it in a free book box inside the Little Burgundy rec centre.  I actually hesitated at first, as I am not a huge fan of Victor Canning's espionage and crime novels.  My good judgement held firm as I could not turn away a beautiful (if faded) Pan that is a combo of young adult and free animal themes.  I am sure glad I took it.  This find went from a B to an A+ that is still delivering.  What a great book!

If I were much less lazy, I would try to write a proper essay on this book and its implications.  Reading this book really crystallized why I read the types of books I do.  There is a common theme of many of the books I read, of freedom.  The private eye working on the edges of the law making his own decisions, the ex-soldier trying to find lost gold in the jungle, Parker walking the thin line between the cops and the outfit, all these narratives provide a fantasy of escape from the confines of quotidian domestic life (the "four walls of today" as the intro to the great OTR Escape puts it so well).  I also like violence and ass-kicking, but reading The Runaways made me realize that I can have a deeply satisfying and even emotional response to a basically action-free adventure.  Other than the cheetah hunting (which was pretty cool but written in a matter of fact style), there is almost no conflict in this book, let alone action.  

Smiler, as he is known, though his real name is Samuel M., is a nice but somewhat errant 15-year old boy who gets falsely arrested for stealing an old lady's pocket book and is sent to an "approved school".  He runs away and gets picked up by the police.  While they are driving him back they get caught in a powerful thunderstorm.  Stopping to help a stranded motorist, the cops leaving Smiler alone and he takes advantage to hop it into the woods.  At the same time, in a nearby open air wild animal zoo in an arisocrat's estate, a female cheetah, Yarra, escapes when a lightning strike destroys the fence that closes her in.  After their various wanderings, Smiler and Yarra end up unknowingly (at first) sharing the same barn as a hiding place.

Smiler is a resourceful and smart kid, almost wise above his years in some ways. His father is a cook on merchant marine ships and his mother died when he was young, which accounts for his independence as well as his somewhat wild ways.  Another element that I loved about this book that though he is on the run from the law and has to be very careful, so there is some tension, everybody that he encounters is that great sort of reasonable, tolerant English person who doesn't ask unnecessary questions once they ascertain that you are a good sort on the out side.  The worst person is his older sister (from whom he ran away) and her great sin is just to maintain a way too clean and uptight household.

I found this book a joy to read from beginning to end.  As well as the freedom angle, particularly enjoyable when following Yarra on her explorations and hunts, we also get some great bildungsroman as Smiler gets a job working at kennels and local colour and geography and even a small bit of detecting.  The final cherry on the top is that there is a sequel, which perhaps I should be wary of as the open ending is quite perfect.  Still, I will definitely add this to my hunting list.