What do you think?
Rate this book
Venus with pistol
Thriller - A novel which works up to beautiful tension and ingenuity in Vienna, reached via London, Amsterdam, Zurich and Venice.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Gavin Lyall
70 books31 followersGavin was born and educated in Birmingham. For two years he served as a RAF pilot before going up to Cambridge, where he edited Varsity, the university newspaper. After working for Picture Post, the Sunday Graphic and the BBC, he began his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, published in 1961. After four years as Air Correspondent to the Sunday Times, he resigned to write books full time. He was married to the well-known journalist Katherine Whitehorn and they lived in London with their children.
Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.
He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.
Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).
All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.
In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.
Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.
Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.
He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.
Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).
All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.
In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.
Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 6, 2019
Venus with Pistol is a tale told - like a lot of Gavin Lyall's books - by the first person. it get s you in to the mind of the protagonists very quickly and helps out with the plotting once it starts getting complicated.
This is a very enjoyable read, told by an amiable if slightly shifty antiques dealer/art smuggler. The characters are well drawn and the story is very original.
Well done Mr Lyall. (less)
This is a very enjoyable read, told by an amiable if slightly shifty antiques dealer/art smuggler. The characters are well drawn and the story is very original.
Well done Mr Lyall. (less)
August 26, 2019
Gavin Lyall is a favorite of mine, particularly for his terrific Major Maxim military espionage series, written in the eighties. He started out in the sixties in the same vein as Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes, in the great British action thriller tradition, where the hero is not an intelligence or law enforcement professional, but rather a man in an interesting line of work that gets him involved unwillingly in some kind of skulduggery.
This one casts a somewhat cynical eye on the art world. Bert Kemp is a dealer in antiques, particularly antique firearms, with a sideline in smuggling works of art across borders to help wealthy patrons avoid taxes, export restrictions, etc. He is approached by the exotic Carlos MacGregor, a Nicaraguan of Scottish descent representing a wealthy Nicaraguan widow who is going around Europe buying up art, supposedly for a museum she is building in Managua. Kemp signs on to a team that includes, besides MacGregor and the widow, a couple of art experts, one of whom is an attractive but somewhat repressed young American woman. You can see where this is going; of course, shady art dealers are everywhere, wanting a piece of the action, people's stories don't quite add up, and when one of the art experts is stabbed to death in his hotel room, things get serious fast.
The action scoots from Zurich to Amsterdam to Venice to Vienna, with our cynical, boozing hero warming up to the prim American maiden and vice-versa. There's even a certain amount of interesting lore about paintings, antique pistols and the business of dealing in them. Great fun if you like the genre.
This one casts a somewhat cynical eye on the art world. Bert Kemp is a dealer in antiques, particularly antique firearms, with a sideline in smuggling works of art across borders to help wealthy patrons avoid taxes, export restrictions, etc. He is approached by the exotic Carlos MacGregor, a Nicaraguan of Scottish descent representing a wealthy Nicaraguan widow who is going around Europe buying up art, supposedly for a museum she is building in Managua. Kemp signs on to a team that includes, besides MacGregor and the widow, a couple of art experts, one of whom is an attractive but somewhat repressed young American woman. You can see where this is going; of course, shady art dealers are everywhere, wanting a piece of the action, people's stories don't quite add up, and when one of the art experts is stabbed to death in his hotel room, things get serious fast.
The action scoots from Zurich to Amsterdam to Venice to Vienna, with our cynical, boozing hero warming up to the prim American maiden and vice-versa. There's even a certain amount of interesting lore about paintings, antique pistols and the business of dealing in them. Great fun if you like the genre.
Read
July 5, 2012I've read a few of Gavin Lyall's books and I find this one on par with the others. I've always liked his character development. The pace and descriptions of location changes adds an enjoyable extra depth to the choice of occupations of its characters. I'll have a drink to the very human Mister Gil/Bert/Gilbert Kemp.
November 29, 2019
He's not well-known these days, and Gavin Lyall deserves to be better appreciated for the slick plots and self-deprecating heroes of his thrillers. I learned a lot of facts about guns and art smuggling from this one, some of which might be true.
February 2, 2016
Culled from parents shelves- donated to St Vincent de Paul
July 5, 2020
This read a bit like a combination of an Ian Fleming travelogue and an Elmore Leonard crime caper, though not quite as detailed as the first and not quite as quirky as the second. Great stuff.
July 30, 2021
Venus with Pistol isn’t as imaginative as Lyall’s other novels. This time the author’s hero is an antique gunsmith who is known to have a nice little smuggling line on the side. He likes to be called Bert, which dates the piece tremendously. Given his full name is Gilbert Kemp, I rather fancy Gil would have had a more exotic ring to it. Methinks Lyall was trying to class-down his character. It doesn’t really work. Even though he has underworld connections, a criminal record and isn’t averse to hitting or shooting people, cheery, well-spoken Bert is of the upper classes for sure. He doesn’t like cheap hotels for starters.
Bert’s offered a three week jaunt to the continent to help smuggle a series of art works across Europe and out to Nicaragua via a Zurich bank. This covers much the same territory as Midnight Plus One and the novel is one long game of cat-and-mouse between Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Zurich and Venice. There are a bunch of shady characters and a prim art expert, Liz Whitley. There’s some nice intrigue surrounding the titular painting, which doesn’t exist in reality but has striking similarities to Giorgione’s actual Sleeping Venus. The neat touches are as overdone as a forger’s signature and I’d lost interest by the time this revelation appeared. The climax is dull.
Lyall has obviously done his research. If you’re interested in fake art, this is the thriller for you.
Beyond that, I can’t find a lot to recommend this one. Very talky. I would have liked fewer locations and more [any?] action. Monumental alcohol consumption from the hero once more. Is this a ‘thing’ with sixties thrillers – does everyone have to grab for the bottle at every opportunity? Bert recognises this himself at one point and queries why he’s drinking at eleven in the morning. I was almost reaching for a glass myself.
Disappointing. A good title does not always a great thriller make.
Bert’s offered a three week jaunt to the continent to help smuggle a series of art works across Europe and out to Nicaragua via a Zurich bank. This covers much the same territory as Midnight Plus One and the novel is one long game of cat-and-mouse between Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Zurich and Venice. There are a bunch of shady characters and a prim art expert, Liz Whitley. There’s some nice intrigue surrounding the titular painting, which doesn’t exist in reality but has striking similarities to Giorgione’s actual Sleeping Venus. The neat touches are as overdone as a forger’s signature and I’d lost interest by the time this revelation appeared. The climax is dull.
Lyall has obviously done his research. If you’re interested in fake art, this is the thriller for you.
Beyond that, I can’t find a lot to recommend this one. Very talky. I would have liked fewer locations and more [any?] action. Monumental alcohol consumption from the hero once more. Is this a ‘thing’ with sixties thrillers – does everyone have to grab for the bottle at every opportunity? Bert recognises this himself at one point and queries why he’s drinking at eleven in the morning. I was almost reaching for a glass myself.
Disappointing. A good title does not always a great thriller make.
February 20, 2021
A lifeless thriller revolving around art smuggling. Flat, dull characters who traverse exotic European locations in search of artistic treasures to be smuggled across European borders landing eventually in Nicaragua!. Our anti-hero Bert Kemp crosses European borders for no apparent reason really with art in his newspaper in one example of nail biting suspense. Not! Murder and double dealing are an ever present threat as are a pair of duelling pistols. Oh and an affair between 2 of the characters which gives new meaning to yawn inducing sex. I'm totally in the minority here review wise but this one has little to recommend imho.
June 30, 2025
Albert Kemp is an expert in, and trader, of antique guns. When a mysterious ‘Scotsman’ appears in his shop offering him a job he is unsure if he wants to return to his old life, that of an art smuggler. However, with business slow, he accepts the offer and travels to France to move the painting into Switzerland, but all does not go to plan. Kemp wakes up in a Zurich park, without the Cezanne, nor any clue what happened.
This is a cracking quick read, with Mr. Lyall’s usual atmospheric writing taking us around Europe as Kemp and an eclectic team try to buy up artwork for a mysterious Nicaraguan museum. The little bit of ‘MacGyver’ towards the end is also a bit of fun.
This is a cracking quick read, with Mr. Lyall’s usual atmospheric writing taking us around Europe as Kemp and an eclectic team try to buy up artwork for a mysterious Nicaraguan museum. The little bit of ‘MacGyver’ towards the end is also a bit of fun.
Read
July 18, 2024In one part of the book, a character criticises a John Le Carre novel saying,” Not enough guns.” It's not a criticism that can be levelled at this book, especially as our ‘anti-hero’ Bert is a dealer in antique guns. For the majority of the book, I pictured him as a grumpy middle-aged man. The story is plot-driven with little emphasis on character. I enjoyed the bits of art history. Of its era.
September 23, 2019
Отличная история, особенно для любителей искусства, архитектуры, древнего оружия и старой Европы. Той Европы, когда ещё было не так то просто провезти картину из Венеции в Цюрих.
October 17, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in January 2001.
Like the "hero" of Midnight Plus One, Gilbert Kemp is aging and on the point of retiring from his role as a man of action. This is rather less admirable than that of Lewis Cane, as he is a professional art smuggler rather than a hero of the French Resistance. He is employed to help a rich Nicaraguan woman set up a national gallery there, evading the "tiresome" restrictions on the export of art. However, some sort of rival gang knows what is going on and people are being attacked and even killed.
The title of Venus With Pistol is that of a rather silly sixteenth century painting with which Kemp becomes involved, a picture of a naked woman with a pistol on her lap; a painting with obvious Freudian interpretations. The novel as a whole is never totally serious; it is a self-deprecating first person narrative. It is a passable read, entertaining if never really gripping. Midnight Plus One is rather better.
Like the "hero" of Midnight Plus One, Gilbert Kemp is aging and on the point of retiring from his role as a man of action. This is rather less admirable than that of Lewis Cane, as he is a professional art smuggler rather than a hero of the French Resistance. He is employed to help a rich Nicaraguan woman set up a national gallery there, evading the "tiresome" restrictions on the export of art. However, some sort of rival gang knows what is going on and people are being attacked and even killed.
The title of Venus With Pistol is that of a rather silly sixteenth century painting with which Kemp becomes involved, a picture of a naked woman with a pistol on her lap; a painting with obvious Freudian interpretations. The novel as a whole is never totally serious; it is a self-deprecating first person narrative. It is a passable read, entertaining if never really gripping. Midnight Plus One is rather better.
March 10, 2016
Ingenious and amusing. Although Lyall's book has sated a little, the detail of how to smuggle priceless works of art is plausible enough. Not quite enough to make one contemplate a second career, but close. The master smuggler is an engaging crook,m his character much enhanced by the author's laconic humour.
The audio version is well done, too.
The audio version is well done, too.
January 5, 2024
Still love this one.
July 1, 2016
Moderately entertaining crime caper but a bit rambling at times and too much plot exposition.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews