Sun 18 Oct 2015
GAVIN LYALL – Venus with Pistol. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hardcover, 1969. Berkley S1920, US, paperback, December 1970. First published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover,1969. Reprinted many times in the UK in paperback.
By reading this book, if ever you do, you will learn more about the dirty side of the world of fine art — the buyers, the experts, the hangers-on and wanna-be’s, the forgers, the smugglers — than you ever dreamed existed. This is the first of Gavin Lyall’s thrillers and suspense novels, fifteen in all, that I’ve ever found time to read, and I’m glad I finally did.
This particular adventure is told by Bert Kemp, a low-key British antique firearms dealer who’s also known in certain circles as being quite adept at moving paintings across European borders without the niceties of paying duties — or even avoiding bans on such activity altogether.
In Venus with Pistol (also the name of a painting that first in brought into the tale on page 203) he’s recruited by Dona Margarita Umberto, a lady with a lot of money after the death of her husband, but with no means of getting her hands on it, the money having been confiscated by the Nicaraguan government. But the lady has political ambitions, and what the officials in Managua will allow her to do, Bert is told, is to go to Europe and obtain works of art for a gallery for the people of her country. Her spending limit: two and a half million pounds.
Well, sir. Bert is on board in less time than it takes to say where do I sign up twice, along with one head assistant named Carlos MacGrgeor and two local art experts, one male, one female. From here the entourage makes a grand tour of Europe, running into snags now and then as they go, but with Bert’s quick mind at work, mostly they work out of them — except for the knock on his noggin that costs him memory as to what happened, along with a missing painting, not to mention one murder, quickly covered up.
What this reads largely like is a series of individual made-for-TV episodes, as they make their way from Paris to Vienna to Venice to Zurich and back to Vienna. But there is a continuing thread to them, as the plot zigs and zags and thickens along the way. Bert is a good man with a quip as well as having a solid knowledge of firearms, about which the reader also will find himself (me) learning perhaps even more about, the ins and outs of which being quite essential to the story, in more ways than one.
The ending, though, is what brings all of the separate adventures together, as Bert works out some thoughts and deductions together that both he and I should have making all the time. There’s a bit of romance at the end as well, one that was highly anticipated (by me), nor I was disappointed.
October 18th, 2015 at 12:55 pm
My favorite Lyall is THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY (1961)a fast-moving tale of mystery and high adventure that I recommend highly
October 18th, 2015 at 2:34 pm
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY is notable to me as the first book I ever bought off a remainder table. I still have it, naturally. I’ve read it a couple of times. I like all the Lyall books I’ve read, in fact.
October 18th, 2015 at 2:38 pm
His great best seller was MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE which I reviewed here years ago. This one is smart and fun and as always his meticulous research pays off.
Lyall is one of the great British thriller writers and you can rely on him across his long career from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME a Cold War novel set in Finland to his highly praised Harry Maxim series to the historical spy novels late in his run.
Lyall ranks with Household,Canning, MacKinnon, and Hammond Innes as the best the genre has.
October 18th, 2015 at 4:41 pm
I tried THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME about a year ago and just couldn’t get into it (seemed to have a slow start) so gave up after about 30 pages. I must give Lyall another go.
October 18th, 2015 at 6:22 pm
The great thriller about “the dirty side of the world of fine art” is Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Don’t Point That Thing At Me, made into a very baad film about a year ago.
October 18th, 2015 at 11:24 pm
David A,
The classic British thriller very seldom starts with a bang. Lyall is a variation of the Buchan school brought up to date and a good deal more cynical with a bit of Chandler thrown in the mix as well, but he takes his time even in a relatively short book like GAME which builds to an exciting ending.
WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY and SHOOTING SCRIPT are both good strong fun books with the latters portrait of an Errol Flynn type actor getting caught up in a real revolution well done, but his masterpiece is MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE, a chase across France that has echoes of Chandler and Hammett as well as Buchan and Fleming and a stunning final chapter. It’s on my list of the top twenty best British thrillers of the 20th Century and that list includes Buchan, Greene, and Ambler.
Steve,
I can’t recall where I read it, but I do remember reading about how much research Lyall put into this actually spending weeks working one set piece out by experiment at his kitchen table to see if it would actually work. It puts many of the techno thrillers today to shame where writers just assume the technology would work the way they are told it would by their research assistants or the experts they consult.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:52 pm
When Lyall and his wife visited friends in Northfield,MN, back in the late 1980s my wife and I were invited to have dinner with them. I showed up with a suitcase full of copies of his books and we spent some time together while he signed the books I had brought.