Queen's Pawn

Victor Canning

Apr 2013 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

Handsome, brilliant young conman Andrew Raikes is set to swap the hustle for a life of quiet luxury and independence in the English countryside. Then, barely two months in to his new life, a letter arrives from a man even more cunning and ruthless than himself. Raikes is soon blackmailed into carrying out one final heist: a crime more audacious and dazzling than anything he has attempted before. Can he pull it off? And will he be able to free himself from the clutches of his blackmailer?

Victor Canning weaves riches, glamour and darkness through the world of 1960's Britain to create this complex, gripping and highly-readable crime thriller.

About the author

Victor Canning was primarily a writer of thrillers, and wrote his many books under the pseudonyms Julian Forest and Alan Gould. Among his immediate contemporaries were Eric Ambler, Alistair Maclean and Hammond Innes.

Canning was a prolific writer throughout his career, which began young: he had sold several short stories by the age of nineteen and his first novel, Mr Finchley Discovers His England (1934) was published when he was twenty-three. Canning also wrote for children: his The Runaways trilogy was adapted for US children’s television.

Canning’s later thrillers were darker and more complex than his earlier work and received great critical acclaim. The Rainbird Pattern was awarded the CWA Silver Dagger in 1973 and nominated for an Edgar award in 1974.

In 1976 The Rainbird Pattern was transformed by Alfred Hitchcock into the comic film Family Plot, which was to be Hitchcock’s last film. Several of Canning’s other novels including Golden Salamander (1949) were also made into films during Canning’s lifetime.