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The Land God Gave to Cain
Ian Ferguson learns that his father's death was precipated by an S.O.S. radioed from the Labrador peninsula. The mystery is that the message came from a man believed to be dead, victim of a fiery crash during an earlier geological expedition.
Ian sets out across Canada's desolate north. Here he unravels the mystery surrounding the expedition and its bizarre connection with his grandfather's murder some 50 years before.
397 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
About the author
Hammond Innes
106 books107 followersRalph Hammond Innes was an English novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books.He was awarded a C.B.E. (Commander, Order of the British Empire) in 1978. The World Mystery Convention honoured Innes with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bouchercon XXIV awards in Omaha, Nebraska, Oct, 1993.
Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at the Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the Financial Times (at the time called the Financial News). The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941); the last of which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain at RAF Kenley. After being discharged in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes.
His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the Berlin Airlift.
Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta Connection (1996).
Unusually for the thriller genre, Innes' protagonists were often not "heroes" in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment (the Arctic, the open sea, deserts), or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. The protagonist generally is forced to rely on his own wits and making best use of limited resources, rather than the weapons and gadgetry commonly used by thriller writers.
Four of his early novels were made into films: Snowbound (1948)from The Lonely Skier (1947), Hell Below Zero (1954) from The White South (1949), Campbell's Kingdom (1957), and The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959). His 1973 novel Golden Soak was adapted into a six-part television series in 1979.
Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at the Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the Financial Times (at the time called the Financial News). The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major. During the war, a number of his books were published, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack Alarm (1941); the last of which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain at RAF Kenley. After being discharged in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes.
His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the Berlin Airlift.
Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta Connection (1996).
Unusually for the thriller genre, Innes' protagonists were often not "heroes" in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment (the Arctic, the open sea, deserts), or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. The protagonist generally is forced to rely on his own wits and making best use of limited resources, rather than the weapons and gadgetry commonly used by thriller writers.
Four of his early novels were made into films: Snowbound (1948)from The Lonely Skier (1947), Hell Below Zero (1954) from The White South (1949), Campbell's Kingdom (1957), and The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959). His 1973 novel Golden Soak was adapted into a six-part television series in 1979.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
November 22, 2016
A great old school adventure/thriller. I remember discovering Hammond Innes around the same time as Desmond Bagley, and many, many enjoyable hours spent with their everyday heroes. Innes in particular tended to use normal people as the protagonist, showing how they could use their wits and average skills to make sense of the strange and to survive in extreme situations, so I was delighted to discover a new-to-me story. I started reading it that evening, and finished it in the wee hours. The research, the two journeys Innes made to Labrador, and his appreciation of those who built the railways all shine through.
Here Ian Ferguson is an English engineer, thrust unexpectedly into the frozen, grim outlas he struggles to reconcile radio logs with strange reactions. During his investigation, he has to decide whether to stake lives on his father's reputation, and whether to risk his own.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Here Ian Ferguson is an English engineer, thrust unexpectedly into the frozen, grim outlas he struggles to reconcile radio logs with strange reactions. During his investigation, he has to decide whether to stake lives on his father's reputation, and whether to risk his own.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
February 4, 2015
Exciting, honest, simple, enjoyable. I loved this book, and I recommend it for everyone to read! It's not a story full of twists and huge events, but nonetheless it is a great story about a guy who wants to find out what his father struggled to show before his death. The ending was great in my opinion, and quite unexpected. I simply loved the raw emotions and secretiveness that the characters had in the book.
December 22, 2019
As the title indicates, Innes' novel describes a godforsaken frozen wilderness in the Labrador region of Canada. Almost as frozen is the mystery of two expeditions to the interior, a place covered with forests, chilled to iced muskegs, gravel strewn plains, and a slew of lakes. Somewhere near the Lake of the Lion lies a gold mine. It was also the site of a crime two generations ago. It will in these pages narrated by Ian Ferguson become the rendezvous point for the descendants of that earlier generation.
Not only is there a classic quality to this adventure tale, a quest seeded with hints and vague clues that tease the reader along nicely, but there is an intimate dimension to its unfolding that is the hallmark of Hammond Innes at his best. Which was during the 1950s and 1960s. As is somewhat usual for the author, he has his hero plucked from a nice and cozy job in England and less than twenty-four hours later set adrift to survive in the harsh wilderness of northeastern Canada. Only the close bonds he forges with iconoclastic Canadians allows Ian Ferguson manages to survive where others have already fallen prey to the wind, the snow, the ice, and hunger.
This is the product of a middle aged Innes, but someone still in touch with the youthfulness of his hero, the 23 year old hero Ian Ferguson. And I suppose he still recollected enough of his own youthful follies to enable him to put into Ian the unpredictability, rashness, recklessness, and sometimes naive stupidity that both frustrates Ferguson as well as powers him on to his goal. There is no romance, here--at least not for Ian. Just a sense of mission and uncovering a mystery. And all set against the awesome loneliness of being adrift in a primeval wilderness.
Not only is there a classic quality to this adventure tale, a quest seeded with hints and vague clues that tease the reader along nicely, but there is an intimate dimension to its unfolding that is the hallmark of Hammond Innes at his best. Which was during the 1950s and 1960s. As is somewhat usual for the author, he has his hero plucked from a nice and cozy job in England and less than twenty-four hours later set adrift to survive in the harsh wilderness of northeastern Canada. Only the close bonds he forges with iconoclastic Canadians allows Ian Ferguson manages to survive where others have already fallen prey to the wind, the snow, the ice, and hunger.
This is the product of a middle aged Innes, but someone still in touch with the youthfulness of his hero, the 23 year old hero Ian Ferguson. And I suppose he still recollected enough of his own youthful follies to enable him to put into Ian the unpredictability, rashness, recklessness, and sometimes naive stupidity that both frustrates Ferguson as well as powers him on to his goal. There is no romance, here--at least not for Ian. Just a sense of mission and uncovering a mystery. And all set against the awesome loneliness of being adrift in a primeval wilderness.
February 9, 2013
The only way I can describe the experience of reading any Hammond Innes book is to say it feels like I'm reading a 1950's black & white movie. A very good black & white movie.
January 13, 2024
Innes traveled 15,000 miles researching this book. It features complex motives, human conflict and a dogged piecing together of old and new mysteries which lead the central protagonist on plenty of false trails. Yet, above all, it’s an account of pushing a railroad into the wilderness of Labrador and the challenges and solitude that result. Now some of the language in this 1958 novel might feel dated, but it no doubt reflects how people talked and felt at the time. And although in a time of climate crisis we might view the central enterprise differently, we can still respond to the achievements (as well as the expeditions) that Innes describes.
March 4, 2016
This is an adventure book. It reminds me of books I read as a teenager and today might be marketed in the YA category although there are no YA characters. The story is told in a refreshingly straightforward way, with no jumps in time back and forth in various characters lives, just the unfolding of the tale as it happened in this fictional Labrador world. It's a tale well told from a different era (1950s) that kept me turning the pages the whole way. If you liked Jack London's "Call of the Wild" you'll probably like this.
August 2, 2008
The novel is suspenseful enough, and the unconventional setting makes it fascinating. An easy book to read - it drew me right in and spat me out the other end. But the blatant racism of the narrator made me extremely uncomfortable. Though it was certainly realistic for both the period the book was set in, and the time in which it was written, the comments concerning the savagery of Native and French Canadian characters were extremely off-putting.
January 7, 2010
Audio book I found at the library. Got it entirely for the title. Turned out to be an old school British adventure story. Looked up the author apparently he spent six months each year traveling in some exotic location then the the remaining six months writing a novel set in that place. Nice life!
September 18, 2008
Reread.
February 9, 2013
The only way I can describe the experience of reading any Hammond Innes book is to say it feels like I'm reading a 1950's black & white movie. A very good black & white movie.
February 14, 2014
Another classic book from one of the best thriller writers of his generation. Written in the days when stories were so much simpler; they started at the beginning and finished at the end. Oh joy!!
May 2, 2017
First time I read it in 2003, I noted by my initial, 'Excellent story'. And it was again. (I don't often re-read a story, but since I couldn't bear to pass it on, there it was with over a hundred others on my shelf ... just begging to be picked up one more time.
In the early 20th century style so often used by Nevil Shute, Alistair McaLean and others, Hammond Innes does a wonderful job of weaving a story, narrated in the first person. In addition to the suspense that carries through from beginning to end, the author captures the frontier atmosphere of the Labrador wilderness with amazing clarity. When the main characters are cold, wet and miserable, I could feel that misery. I'll not go further ... no spoilers here. Enjoy.
In the early 20th century style so often used by Nevil Shute, Alistair McaLean and others, Hammond Innes does a wonderful job of weaving a story, narrated in the first person. In addition to the suspense that carries through from beginning to end, the author captures the frontier atmosphere of the Labrador wilderness with amazing clarity. When the main characters are cold, wet and miserable, I could feel that misery. I'll not go further ... no spoilers here. Enjoy.
July 1, 2023
A British engineer is called home when his disabled war veteran father dies suddenly. The father was a radioman who continued with ham radio after the war. He seems to have picked up a distress call from a prospector who was reported dead by the pilot who took him into a remote lake in Labrador. No one believes the son, who travels to Labrador in an effort to find the lost prospector. This is a thriller and is most notable for the descriptions of the Labrador wilderness.
August 9, 2022
Just so delightful. Adventure story at its finest: forbidding natural landscape, personal heroism, a good present and past mystery to solve. The opening description of a brain-damaged father dying while agitatedly trying to deliver a message he'd picked up on ham radio was just a bit heart-tugging. A few plot improbabilities shy of five stars.
January 30, 2019
I thought this would seem a bit dated, but I was so wrong! Hammond Innes is a master storyteller.Or so my husband says. Good story and plot. Worth a credit :) well read by the narrator.An enthralling yarn, brilliantly narrated!
August 10, 2025
The book was written in the 1950’s and is somewhat of that era and none the worse for it. A proper adventure story of the old school. It got going at a pace in the second half. In style it reminded me of Neil Shute at his best.
April 13, 2012
One of my favourite writers, I'm never disappointed. He always write a gripping good story, and the reader is never disappointed.
January 8, 2013
A classic and one of my all time favorites.
August 4, 2016
Set in Labrador
July 19, 2019
Very dated
A good story, but very dated in its telling. Sometimes a bit melodramatic, too. Would have fitted when it was written, but now very dated.
A good story, but very dated in its telling. Sometimes a bit melodramatic, too. Would have fitted when it was written, but now very dated.
December 22, 2019
Fast paced and engaging story.
January 13, 2024
This guy Innes really went to Labrador and researched this. It shows.
May 18, 2021
. I found the plot entertaining and the twist at the end really surprised me. Some racist and sexist language
October 7, 2022
easy read
I first read this book when I was fourteen. What a joy to read it again.
I would recommend this book to anybody who likes a good story
Throughly enjoyable
I first read this book when I was fourteen. What a joy to read it again.
I would recommend this book to anybody who likes a good story
Throughly enjoyable
June 7, 2011
Just "okay" on the second read. Mediocre writing.
May 13, 2020
At a time when thrillers were becoming brutal, Hammond Innes seems like a strangely mild writer. There are some violent killings and severing of body parts, but the descriptions are so removed that nobody is likely to feel sick reading them.
In some ways Innes seems more akin to Arthur Conan Doyle in his adventure stories – a kind of boy’s own mission in which a mission sets out on a rescue. The people in need of rescuing perhaps are two members of an expedition who have been given up for dead.
The story is narrated by Ian Ferguson, and he learns of the men’s fate when he discovers notes left by his dead father, a radio ham operator, suggesting that two men are stranded in Labrador. In a rather unlikely manner, Ferguson is soon flying to Labrador to investigate for himself
The events are connected with a third member of the expedition, Bert Laroche, who made it back alive and insists the other two were dead. However the radio message arrived after Larcoche’s return. Is Laroche lying? Is Ferguson’s father reliable? What is the connection between Laroche and the murder of Ian’s grandfather? And did Laroche kill or abandon the two men for reasons of his own?
Those are some of the questions that are answered very slowly, so it would not be right for me to tell you the outcome. Compared with contemporaries such as Jack Higgins, Innes is a reasonably good story-teller, avoiding stodgy or overly-unpleasant details.
However I compared him to Arthur Conan Doyle, and here the comparison is less flattering. There is after all a reason why Conan Doyle is still widely-read whilst Innes’ popularity is fading. If this was a Conan Doyle story, I imagine that the details leading up to the rescue mission would have occupied perhaps a third of the book, and the mission would have taken up the rest, even if it meant making a much shorter work.
Innes lavishes a large amount of time on incidental details – Ferguson’s father’s records, or the journeying around from place to place seeking information. Many pages pass in which we are no nearer to finding anything out, and the truth unravels at a snail’s pace. The effect of this is that the good feeling I had in the early part of the book begins to drain away, and I was beginning to get bored by the end.
The title is an odd one, but it reflects a theme of family members, brothers and murder that runs through the book. I won’t say too much about who murders who, but it will be no surprise to learn that it is not as obvious as it first appears to Ferguson.
This Biblical allusion is appropriate. Surprisingly for an action novel, Innes keeps adding intrusive comments about god and religion. As a fellow-Brit, I find this just as uncomfortable as I would if a workmate kept doing the same thing. On the whole it is considered to be bad etiquette in Britain to harp on about one’s beliefs.
There is some inconsistency here. Ferguson says that he is not religious. “Science saw to that,” he says. (That’s right, blame science.) Nonetheless there are early passages in which he prays, and the book sprinkles pieties right up until the last page.
Innes does a good job of conveying the frozen and grim atmosphere of Labrador. He clearly researched the subject, and it shows. Unfortunately, as I have said on other occasions, well-researched and well-written are not the same thing. The accretion of well-studied detail only serves to slow down the narrative, and it is very late – far too late – in the book before events reach a denouement that might have maintained my interest.
In some ways Innes seems more akin to Arthur Conan Doyle in his adventure stories – a kind of boy’s own mission in which a mission sets out on a rescue. The people in need of rescuing perhaps are two members of an expedition who have been given up for dead.
The story is narrated by Ian Ferguson, and he learns of the men’s fate when he discovers notes left by his dead father, a radio ham operator, suggesting that two men are stranded in Labrador. In a rather unlikely manner, Ferguson is soon flying to Labrador to investigate for himself
The events are connected with a third member of the expedition, Bert Laroche, who made it back alive and insists the other two were dead. However the radio message arrived after Larcoche’s return. Is Laroche lying? Is Ferguson’s father reliable? What is the connection between Laroche and the murder of Ian’s grandfather? And did Laroche kill or abandon the two men for reasons of his own?
Those are some of the questions that are answered very slowly, so it would not be right for me to tell you the outcome. Compared with contemporaries such as Jack Higgins, Innes is a reasonably good story-teller, avoiding stodgy or overly-unpleasant details.
However I compared him to Arthur Conan Doyle, and here the comparison is less flattering. There is after all a reason why Conan Doyle is still widely-read whilst Innes’ popularity is fading. If this was a Conan Doyle story, I imagine that the details leading up to the rescue mission would have occupied perhaps a third of the book, and the mission would have taken up the rest, even if it meant making a much shorter work.
Innes lavishes a large amount of time on incidental details – Ferguson’s father’s records, or the journeying around from place to place seeking information. Many pages pass in which we are no nearer to finding anything out, and the truth unravels at a snail’s pace. The effect of this is that the good feeling I had in the early part of the book begins to drain away, and I was beginning to get bored by the end.
The title is an odd one, but it reflects a theme of family members, brothers and murder that runs through the book. I won’t say too much about who murders who, but it will be no surprise to learn that it is not as obvious as it first appears to Ferguson.
This Biblical allusion is appropriate. Surprisingly for an action novel, Innes keeps adding intrusive comments about god and religion. As a fellow-Brit, I find this just as uncomfortable as I would if a workmate kept doing the same thing. On the whole it is considered to be bad etiquette in Britain to harp on about one’s beliefs.
There is some inconsistency here. Ferguson says that he is not religious. “Science saw to that,” he says. (That’s right, blame science.) Nonetheless there are early passages in which he prays, and the book sprinkles pieties right up until the last page.
Innes does a good job of conveying the frozen and grim atmosphere of Labrador. He clearly researched the subject, and it shows. Unfortunately, as I have said on other occasions, well-researched and well-written are not the same thing. The accretion of well-studied detail only serves to slow down the narrative, and it is very late – far too late – in the book before events reach a denouement that might have maintained my interest.
January 18, 2026
Hammond Innes travelled 15,000 miles getting background material for this tale of Labrador first publishing in 1958. Ian Ferguson a 23 year old construction engineer building an airport near Bristol when he gets news that his disabled father has died suddenly. Ferguson gets the train to London and finds that his father, a ham radio enthusiast, died after receiving an SOS from remote north eastern Canada. He had a keen interest in the area with lots of books and maps which Ian had never asked him about. Ian’s mother is anxious to prevent him from investigating the freak message which suggested that a man called Briske, part of lost prospecting expedition, was still alive some days after a search had been called off by the Canadians.
Ian agrees with his mother that it’s best to pretend that his father had hallucinated the message and goes back to Bristol to resume his humdrums job. No, of course he wangles a plane ride to Canada and stirs a hornet’s nest of hostility to his belief that the explorers are still alive (his father was not one to err) even though one, a certain Laroche, had made it back to base with an injury to his head saying he knew that his two companions, including Briske, were dead from their injuries from the plane crash before the radio message was sent!
The first 150 pages are rather underwhelming as Ferguson dodges his way up a railroad being constructed to the iron ore fields trying in vain to restart the search and things only really get going when the rescue party (including the distinctly odd and possibly murderous Laroche) sets out for “The Lake of the Lion” just as winter really starts to set in. On the way Ferguson discovers that he has a personal interest in happenings many years before that involved his and Laroche’s grandfathers’ equally ill-fated expedition.
Ian agrees with his mother that it’s best to pretend that his father had hallucinated the message and goes back to Bristol to resume his humdrums job. No, of course he wangles a plane ride to Canada and stirs a hornet’s nest of hostility to his belief that the explorers are still alive (his father was not one to err) even though one, a certain Laroche, had made it back to base with an injury to his head saying he knew that his two companions, including Briske, were dead from their injuries from the plane crash before the radio message was sent!
The first 150 pages are rather underwhelming as Ferguson dodges his way up a railroad being constructed to the iron ore fields trying in vain to restart the search and things only really get going when the rescue party (including the distinctly odd and possibly murderous Laroche) sets out for “The Lake of the Lion” just as winter really starts to set in. On the way Ferguson discovers that he has a personal interest in happenings many years before that involved his and Laroche’s grandfathers’ equally ill-fated expedition.
April 11, 2024
For my money, Mr. Innes's best novel. On the spur of the moment, driven by the unexpected death of his father and an unresolved family mystery, young English engineer Ian Ferguson heads to Canada to prove that his invalided father wasn't wrong in claiming he'd heard a radio message from a man presumed dead on an expedition into the Canadian wilds. As step by step Ferguson is drawn deeper into a cold hell along the route of a rigorous railroad construction project in search of answers, he encounters doubts, disappointments, contradictions, love, hate, greed, betrayal, sacrifice, courage, extraordinary endurance, and in the end a set of discoveries he could not have foreseen and a decision he never though he'd have to make. This is a great story of ordinary people faced with the extraordinary demands of a harsh land and a human tragedy.
May 17, 2026
The search for the truth in Labrador Canada
Ian is an English engineer. He gets a telegram that his ailing father is dead.
Ian's father had been badly disabled. Despite debilitating issues, he obsessively worked a ham radio days and hours on end. It had been his career and now his life.
When Ian discovers his father's obsession helped kill him, he is determined to solve his Dad's last transmission.
Ian's reports and inquirys are met with skeptaism, disbelief and anger. But he ends up in Labrador Canada where he endures the harshness of the land.
An obviously older book. But what an adventure! Innes describes Labrador's beauty, stark sparsness, dangers, vast desolation and the reason it is called The Land God Gave Cain.
Meets my World Mystery Chhallenge.
Ian is an English engineer. He gets a telegram that his ailing father is dead.
Ian's father had been badly disabled. Despite debilitating issues, he obsessively worked a ham radio days and hours on end. It had been his career and now his life.
When Ian discovers his father's obsession helped kill him, he is determined to solve his Dad's last transmission.
Ian's reports and inquirys are met with skeptaism, disbelief and anger. But he ends up in Labrador Canada where he endures the harshness of the land.
An obviously older book. But what an adventure! Innes describes Labrador's beauty, stark sparsness, dangers, vast desolation and the reason it is called The Land God Gave Cain.
Meets my World Mystery Chhallenge.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews