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The House of the Seven Flies
1952 Hardcover w/Dust Jacket
Audio Cassette
First published August 1, 1955
About the author
Victor Canning
165 books60 followersVictor 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.
Canning was born in Plymouth, Devon, the eldest child of a coach builder, Fred Canning, and his wife May, née Goold. During World War I his father served as an ambulance driver in France and Flanders, while he with his two sisters went to live in the village of Calstock ten miles north of Plymouth, where his uncle Cecil Goold worked for the railways and later became station master. After the war the family returned to Plymouth. In the mid 1920s they moved to Oxford where his father had found work, and Victor attended the Oxford Central School. Here he was encouraged to stay on at school and go to university by a classical scholar, Dr. Henderson, but the family could not afford it and instead Victor went to work as a clerk in the education office at age 16.
Within three years he had started selling short stories to boys’ magazines and in 1934, his first novel. Mr. Finchley Discovers his England, was accepted by Hodder and Stoughton and became a runaway best seller. He gave up his job and started writing full time, producing thirteen more novels in the next six years under three different names. Lord Rothermere engaged him to write for the Daily Mail, and a number of his travel articles for the Daily Mail were collected as a book with illustrations by Leslie Stead under the title Everyman's England in 1936. He also continued to write short stories.
He married Phyllis McEwen in 1935, a girl from a theatrical family whom he met while she was working with a touring vaudeville production at Weston-super-Mare. They had three daughters, Lindel born in 1939, Hilary born in 1940, and Virginia who was born in 1942, but died in infancy.
In 1940 he enlisted in the Army, and was sent for training with the Royal Artillery in Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales, where he trained alongside his friend Eric Ambler. Both were commissioned as second lieutenants in 1941. Canning worked in anti-aircraft batteries in the south of England until early 1943, when he was sent to North Africa and took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaigns. At the end of the war he was assigned to an Anglo-American unit doing experimental work with radar range-finding. It was top secret work but nothing to do with espionage, though Canning never discouraged the assumption of publishers and reviewers that his espionage stories were partly based on experience. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of major.
He resumed writing with The Chasm (1947), a novel about identifying a Nazi collaborator who has hidden himself in a remote Italian village. A film of this was planned but never finished. Canning’s next book, Panther’s Moon, was filmed as Spy Hunt, and from now on Canning was established as someone who could write a book a year in the suspense genre, have them reliably appear in book club and paperback editions on both sides of the Atlantic, be translated into the main European languages, and in many cases get filmed. He himself spent a year in Hollywood working on scripts for movies of his own books and on TV shows. The money earned from the film of The Golden Salamander (filmed with Trevor Howard) meant that Canning could buy a substantial country house with some land in Kent, Marle Place, where he lived for nearly twenty years and where his daughter continues to live now. From the mid 1950s onwards his books became more conventional, full of exotic settings, stirring action sequences and stock characters. In 1965 he began a series of four books featuring a private detective called Rex Carver, and these were among his most successful in sales terms.
He died in 1986.
Canning was born in Plymouth, Devon, the eldest child of a coach builder, Fred Canning, and his wife May, née Goold. During World War I his father served as an ambulance driver in France and Flanders, while he with his two sisters went to live in the village of Calstock ten miles north of Plymouth, where his uncle Cecil Goold worked for the railways and later became station master. After the war the family returned to Plymouth. In the mid 1920s they moved to Oxford where his father had found work, and Victor attended the Oxford Central School. Here he was encouraged to stay on at school and go to university by a classical scholar, Dr. Henderson, but the family could not afford it and instead Victor went to work as a clerk in the education office at age 16.
Within three years he had started selling short stories to boys’ magazines and in 1934, his first novel. Mr. Finchley Discovers his England, was accepted by Hodder and Stoughton and became a runaway best seller. He gave up his job and started writing full time, producing thirteen more novels in the next six years under three different names. Lord Rothermere engaged him to write for the Daily Mail, and a number of his travel articles for the Daily Mail were collected as a book with illustrations by Leslie Stead under the title Everyman's England in 1936. He also continued to write short stories.
He married Phyllis McEwen in 1935, a girl from a theatrical family whom he met while she was working with a touring vaudeville production at Weston-super-Mare. They had three daughters, Lindel born in 1939, Hilary born in 1940, and Virginia who was born in 1942, but died in infancy.
In 1940 he enlisted in the Army, and was sent for training with the Royal Artillery in Llandrindod Wells in mid-Wales, where he trained alongside his friend Eric Ambler. Both were commissioned as second lieutenants in 1941. Canning worked in anti-aircraft batteries in the south of England until early 1943, when he was sent to North Africa and took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaigns. At the end of the war he was assigned to an Anglo-American unit doing experimental work with radar range-finding. It was top secret work but nothing to do with espionage, though Canning never discouraged the assumption of publishers and reviewers that his espionage stories were partly based on experience. He was discharged in 1946 with the rank of major.
He resumed writing with The Chasm (1947), a novel about identifying a Nazi collaborator who has hidden himself in a remote Italian village. A film of this was planned but never finished. Canning’s next book, Panther’s Moon, was filmed as Spy Hunt, and from now on Canning was established as someone who could write a book a year in the suspense genre, have them reliably appear in book club and paperback editions on both sides of the Atlantic, be translated into the main European languages, and in many cases get filmed. He himself spent a year in Hollywood working on scripts for movies of his own books and on TV shows. The money earned from the film of The Golden Salamander (filmed with Trevor Howard) meant that Canning could buy a substantial country house with some land in Kent, Marle Place, where he lived for nearly twenty years and where his daughter continues to live now. From the mid 1950s onwards his books became more conventional, full of exotic settings, stirring action sequences and stock characters. In 1965 he began a series of four books featuring a private detective called Rex Carver, and these were among his most successful in sales terms.
He died in 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 7, 2019
A thriller adapted from the story of the same title by Victor Canning, this graphic (comic) version is part of the Super-Detective Library series.
Edward Furse is an ex-British army officer who has turned to smuggling as being 'a pleasant and easy way of making his living'. But he does not expect to encounter the troubles he has when he decides to try and locate some sunken treasure that has been at the bottom of the ocean since wartime.
He persuades his wartime friend in Rotterdam Charlie Ponz to assist him and the pair get into trouble from the very beginning when German gangsters get wind of their interest. But Furse has disposed of a slip of paper, found in an agent's briefcase, which had some coordinates on it to help locate the wreck and thus the treasure. Furse had memorised the details so he had nothing to tell the Germans about the whereabouts of the treasure when heavily questioned.
The action moves around Holland with Furse just managing to get out of the various scrapes he finds himself in and the advent of a female, friend or foe indeterminate, does not help matters. As for the House of Seven Flies that appears to be a mansion where the criminals are in hiding but it plays little part in this version of the tale, which eventually comes down to a complicated and rather messy ending.
I collected these comics when I was young but if I had this one at the time, I feel sure, as a nine-year-old, I would have been wondering what exactly is going on. Even now I am not too sure as to what was happening all the time … perhaps the original story has lost something in the re-telling. Well, that's what I'm telling myself anyway!
Edward Furse is an ex-British army officer who has turned to smuggling as being 'a pleasant and easy way of making his living'. But he does not expect to encounter the troubles he has when he decides to try and locate some sunken treasure that has been at the bottom of the ocean since wartime.
He persuades his wartime friend in Rotterdam Charlie Ponz to assist him and the pair get into trouble from the very beginning when German gangsters get wind of their interest. But Furse has disposed of a slip of paper, found in an agent's briefcase, which had some coordinates on it to help locate the wreck and thus the treasure. Furse had memorised the details so he had nothing to tell the Germans about the whereabouts of the treasure when heavily questioned.
The action moves around Holland with Furse just managing to get out of the various scrapes he finds himself in and the advent of a female, friend or foe indeterminate, does not help matters. As for the House of Seven Flies that appears to be a mansion where the criminals are in hiding but it plays little part in this version of the tale, which eventually comes down to a complicated and rather messy ending.
I collected these comics when I was young but if I had this one at the time, I feel sure, as a nine-year-old, I would have been wondering what exactly is going on. Even now I am not too sure as to what was happening all the time … perhaps the original story has lost something in the re-telling. Well, that's what I'm telling myself anyway!
November 12, 2018
Borrowed from Amherstview library but was originally a Queen's University library book. 1970 hardback edition, not in Goodreads list. Good thriller, a bit dated of course, written in 1952. Will read more of his books.
March 22, 2019
Edward Furse charters out his yacht to a guy who begins vomiting from sea sickness.
When he checks on the guy later, he is dead. Furse goes through his luggage and finds maps of where some diamonds are hidden; apparently they were stolen from a bank. So Furse decides to go to search for the diamonds. Being in some financial trouble, he thinks of all he can do if he finds the diamonds. He decides to get a guy named Charlie to help him. Charlie isn't an honest person so Furse knows he'll have to keep an eye on him.
He soon learns that he's not the only one in search of the stolen diamonds.
When he checks on the guy later, he is dead. Furse goes through his luggage and finds maps of where some diamonds are hidden; apparently they were stolen from a bank. So Furse decides to go to search for the diamonds. Being in some financial trouble, he thinks of all he can do if he finds the diamonds. He decides to get a guy named Charlie to help him. Charlie isn't an honest person so Furse knows he'll have to keep an eye on him.
He soon learns that he's not the only one in search of the stolen diamonds.
February 26, 2018
A good old fashioned yarn - imperfect hero, Nazi treasure, the strong woman, lots of nasties, double crosses and triple crosses - all unburdened by graphic sex,language and violence.
That does not deter the reader in any fashion. Great for a cold winter night.
That does not deter the reader in any fashion. Great for a cold winter night.
August 29, 2017
Decently engaging. Would not tout it as a great work of literature, but it is a fun treasure hunt.
July 7, 2024
I had the good fortune to be put on to these by a man who is republishing some books by Nigel Balchin and if you like NB, I think you would like these too. There's a touch of Eric Ambler (but a bit less dark) and a touch of John Buchan (but a bit more up to date.) In this one, there is sailing derring do round the islands and waterways of the Netherlands and lost Nazi treasure. Like Ambler, the mental life of the protagonist is a bit more grown up and ambiguous than some of the "punching machine" thrillers and the other characters are well drawn. I have no way of telling if this is one of his better books but I am strongly encouraged to seek out others. You rarely see them in charity shops which is a good sign as I think the owners want to keep hold of them!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews