Victor Canning
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Victor Canning (born 1911 in Plymouth, Devon; died in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, 1986) was a prolific British author of spy thrillers and adventure novels, plus three children's books, four historical novels, numerous short stories and television scripts, and one stage play.
He is best known for four novels about a fictional private eye named Rex Carver whose adventures tended to become mixed up with secret agents and undercover departments. He began writing comic novels in 1934, basing three of them on the character of Mr Finchley, a middle-aged clerk. He served with the Artillery in North Africa and Italy from 1940 to 1946, and resumed his writing career in 1947 with The Chasm.
He had written many books over a 25-year period before his 1972 novel The Rainbird Pattern won nominations in both the UK and the United States as one of the best mystery novels of the year. It went on to be filmed by Alfred Hitchcock under the title Family Plot. It was a far darker and more ironic book than any of his previous efforts and it earned him a high critical reputation that stayed with him for the rest of his career.
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