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The Golden Salamander
Victor Canning's experiences as a major in the Royal Artillery and in intelligence, gave him the authentic backgrounds for his adventure novels. He occupies a position in crime and espionage fiction somewhere between the classical excellence of John Buchan's spy novels and the latter-day complexities of Len Deighton. Many of his thrillers have been filmed, including THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER, which has an amazingly effective North African setting.
256 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1952
About the author
Victor Canning
168 books62 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 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 9, 2019
David Redfern goes to the small town of Kabarta to evaluate some old, rare art pieces. He will repair any that need it, box them up & send back to the university.
On his way there, he runs into bad weather & the road is washed out. He sees another vehicle there with crates all around it, & some broken when they fell out of the vehicle. Looking inside, he sees tiles, but underneath are guns, obviously being smuggled into the town.
When some men show up, he hides in the trees. He wants nothing to do with that activity.
Redfern has to walk to town because of the washed out road. He goes to a tavern/hotel, of sorts, & later sees those men there. They ask him if he had seen their vehicle & it's crates. Redfern lies & says he didn't see them. He had taken one revolver from the scene & hid it in his chest of drawers.
The men find out that Redfern had lied, & he is suddenly in more trouble than he could have dreamed of.
The story was okay but the author is not one of my favorites.
On his way there, he runs into bad weather & the road is washed out. He sees another vehicle there with crates all around it, & some broken when they fell out of the vehicle. Looking inside, he sees tiles, but underneath are guns, obviously being smuggled into the town.
When some men show up, he hides in the trees. He wants nothing to do with that activity.
Redfern has to walk to town because of the washed out road. He goes to a tavern/hotel, of sorts, & later sees those men there. They ask him if he had seen their vehicle & it's crates. Redfern lies & says he didn't see them. He had taken one revolver from the scene & hid it in his chest of drawers.
The men find out that Redfern had lied, & he is suddenly in more trouble than he could have dreamed of.
The story was okay but the author is not one of my favorites.
July 9, 2023
This is another older, book which I have read a lot of them. The one thing of these, as with this one, older books, the author just lays out the story line in away that grabs hold the reader all the way the end. I believe Canning has accomplished this completely and that's why I liked this story. I think that this is a must read novel.
January 31, 2020
This was my first book by this author. I wanted to watch the movie based upon this book, but wanted to read the book first. I enjoyed it from the first page, and the last 50 pages or so I couldn’t put it down.
Well recommended.
Well recommended.
March 26, 2019
An enjoyable story in the vein of Alistair MacLean, but with a dose of existentialism thrown in for good measure.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews