Showing results by author "Victor Canning" in All Categories

Mr Edgar Finchley, unmarried clerk, aged 45, is told to take a holiday for the first time in his life. He decides to go to the seaside. But Fate has other plans in store...From his abduction by a cheerful crook, to his smuggling escapade off the south coast, the timid but plucky Mr Finchley is plunged into a series of the most astonishing and extraordinary adventures. His rural adventure takes him gradually westward through the English countryside and back, via a smuggling yacht, to London.

An exuberant, life-affirming novel of taking your chances. After a spur-of-the-moment day out with his boss’s daughter in celebration of his 21st birthday, Polycarp Jarvis decides to quit his Bristol-based junior government worker job. Newly emboldened, he embarks on an erratic, engaging, and not always strictly legal course through life. Going from bus driver for the Red Dragon Motor Company to co-owner of a flying company, to seller of quack medicines, and eventually to media tycoon, Polycarp makes much of his luck along the way.

When her employer suddenly disappears, young Grace Kirkstall finds herself accepting a new job at a new company in the same building - an oasis of tranquility off the streets of London. Ben and Helen Brown’s start-up company’s pitch is that, for a small consideration, they will help people out of their major and minor fixes. Their first big commission initiates Ben into the gentle art of housebreaking, and Helen into the mysteries of the Society for Progressive Rehabilitation.... But for Grace, it will plunge her into more danger than she could ever have imagined.

How far could you go living in another’s shoes? In a mid-life moment, Paul Morison travels from America to England to discover his mother’s roots. A chance encounter and an uncanny resemblance leads him to agree to assume the identity of a famous singer for a while. This gentle comic caper and love story was hugely popular on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

The Minerva Club might look like any other London gentlemen’s club, but behind its respectable and discreet façade, some of the most ambitious schemes for heists, money-making, and evasion of the law are being worked out. It’s an exclusive club for criminals. Entry qualification: Members must have served a prison sentence of two years minimum. Though the club’s criminal ventures don’t always go as planned…

Best-selling crime writer Geoffrey Gilroy is overcome with jealousy when his wife’s newfound success in the genre begins to eclipse his. Drawing upon his extensive knowledge on the subject, he meticulously plans the perfect murder that will put an end to his wife’s career—and life—once and for all.