ie They are NOT coming from overseas !!
THE MELTING MAN
- By Victor Canning -
Author Portrait to back panel of the dustjacket
ISBN:-
Publisher: Readers Book Club/Companion Book Club, London, UK
Published: 1968
Binding: HARDcover with Dustjacket 252 pages
Condition: UNread & displayed condition! HERE in MELBOURNE! A retired display
copy as illustrated!
Edition: FIRST Thus EDITION: 1st printing
TIGHT, SCARCE HARDCOVER ~ IN MELBOURNE ...
WHY do ebayers buy from US?
Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item!!
Remains UNread - it was the display copy instore. It is Tight - neat, no inscriptions or marks within. Appears as in my photos - this is the exact copy!! A nicely preserved copy - superb!
Minimal, if any, discernible shelf wear to the green boards, the interior is tight and spotlessly clean with 252 pages - mild ageing to paper. THIS copy is the FIRST Thus Edition: Only printing from 1968 - the Australian publishing by Readers Book Club/Companion Book Club, Hawthorn, Victoria.
There's a wonderful author portrait to the back panel of the dustjacket designed by Vern Hayles.
SCARCE title - this is an UNread copy!!
In original green boards with red leatherette spine plate with gold titles HARDcover binding, in publisher's dustjacket which is in excellent generally (underside support at top & bottom of spine areas), slightest graze to spine unclipped condition.
(Stored with 2020!)
Measures approx. 9¾ x 6¾ inches or 25 x 17cms
SYNOPSIS ....
A millionaire was very desirous to know the whereabouts of a certain Mercedes and was paying Rex Carver a lot of money to track it down. Then people started coming from everywhere trying to keep him from finding it. The search takes Carver all over Europe and nearly out of his life.
The 4th book starring Rex Carver. Carver is asked to recover a lost car by millionaire Cavan O'Dowda. It soon becomes clear that what O'Dowda wants is not the car but some secret materials hidden in it. The villains include agents of African politicians and, given the rather thin characterisation, it is difficult for the author to keep all traces of racism out of the book. There is no mention of the secret service mandarins Manston and Sutcliffe, though the French agent, Aristide de la Dole, now working for Interpol, reappears from Doubled in Diamonds. Carver himself behaves with unmotivated recklessness, and in the end it is hard to retain much admiration or sympathy for him. Indeed he behaves just like the idiotic heroes that Canning satirised in his essay "The trouble with heroes" in Suspense, August 1960.
About the Author
Victor Canning was a prolific writer of novels and thrillers who flourished in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, but whose reputation has faded since his death in 1986. He was personally reticent, writing no memoirs and giving relatively few newspaper interviews.
Very Interesting read!
Reviews
Kirkus review … Detective Rex Carter, now flabby but still fast, is hired to find millionaire Cavan O'Dowda's missing Mercedes which contained an unusual accessory. O'Dowda's stepdaughter was driving but she, apparently, has temporary amnesia. This engages two governments, not to mention Interpol and, at one point, finds Carter literally gaffed like a fish and thrashing for his life. It also includes a private wax museum where The Melting Man reveals a macabre secret and provides a final touch for the Canning fan. Rough and heady.
LOVED it!! … This book was the best fun I’ve had reading for quite a while. Not taxing so easy to read. Bought it in Richard Booth’s Bookshop whilst on holiday in Hay-on-Wye, so was an ideal holiday read. Pseudo ‘James Bond’ - in fact it could easily form the basis for a Bond plot - wonderfully imaginative and atmospheric. Slightly non-pc in places so be warned, but if taken in the context of when it was written this shouldn’t offend except the most touchy of people. All-in-all a great read and I’ve already bought a stack more by Canning as I’d never read him before. Highly recommended.
A good thriller….. I've been criticising books published by small independents lately, for too many errors. I've also seen too many errors by the big publishers in recent years, and have heard a rumour that at least one of them is trying to edit books with a computer programme. Such a strange idea, and doomed to fail.
So I was surprised to find this old book, published 1968, had errors in as well - things like there/their confused, and waive/wave. Not too many, but all the same, it does show that even older books can fail in this area.
Otherwise, a nice plot, fast-moving, and quite traditional in the old style thriller/detective genre.
…… In this early novel, Victor Canning presents a narrator who at the outset seems intended to be Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer. He is not such a master of the sort of truculent attitude embodied in Palmer as Deighton is, and the characterisation soon slips. With flashes of Chandler’s Marlowe on the way, we end up with a narrator similar to those of Eric Ambler, if rather nastier than any of them and without the ineffective air Ambler usually gives his central characters. That Canning is not of the same rank as any of these other authors is undeniable (and the slippage of Rex Carver's characterisation demonstrates this), but you can certainly see what would have influenced a publisher to accept this novel.
The narrator runs a fairly shady business in London, which basically bears the same sort of relationship to a normal private detective agency as Special Branch does to the CID. The rich businessman Cavan O'Dowda commissions him to recover a Mercedes, lost somewhere in the south of France by his stepdaughter, who claims to have amnesia about what happened when she disappeared for some days. Carver soon realises that it isn't the car itself that O'Dowda wants back; he was using his stepdaughter to unknowingly courier some sensitive documents to France. Other groups are soon chasing the documents, including representatives of an African dictator and Interpol.
We are soon in standard thriller territory, with the nasty touches that tend to mark out Canning's novels, even among other early seventies' writers. The title of the novel is derived from one of these. O'Dowda is on the edge of insanity, and keeps a room in a chateau filled with waxworks of those who attempted to prevent his success in some way. There, he likes to gloat about his eventual victories; the fire that destroys him along with the dummies is one of the more unpleasant passages in this book.
FIVE STARS …. The plot (trying not to give away spoilers!): private detective Rex Carver is engaged by an Irish millionaire to trace a stolen Mercedes, lost (?) by one of the guy's stepdaughters in Switzerland or France - but she cannot remember anything of what happened. When Carver begins to get results, he also gets into trouble, with African hit teams, Italian con artists, Interpol, and a vengeful Irishman after him. Doesn't stop him falling in love, of course, through which he gets into even more trouble...
The writer: Victor Canning was a prolific English writer with tens of books published in the 1950-1970s. This one is from 1968 and is the fourth of his four successful books: the others are The Whip Hand (1965), Doubled in Diamonds (1966) and The Python Project (1967).
My opinion: very enjoyable, if a bit complicated at times. Much fresher than the James Bond books, as Canning is a better writer than Fleming. I first read these in the late sixties, and still re-read them every ten years or so. Carver is very human with agreeable foibles, and some of the recurring background personalities are a pleasure to read. If you like Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise stories, you'll like these, too!
SPY FICTION … Victor Canning always does it for me, with Rex Carver,and his quirky sense of humour, and that feeling of menace. Great denouement in the Hall of Waxworks. I actually thought that it was what the villain was doing with anyone whom opposed him, won't say any more as don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it.
Marvellous Reading!
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Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item & form part of my description!!
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