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Queen's Pawn (novel)
''Queen's Pawn'' is a 1969 thriller novel by the British writer Victor Canning.Murphy p.79 The title is a reference to the chess opening of the same name and the fact that much of the novel's action centres around the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner. It was his first novel after finishing the Rex Carver series of spy adventures. Synopsis Andrew Raikes a confidence trickster is trying to raise enough money to reclaim his family's ancestral home which had been lost by his father's mismanagement. Barely two months after achieving this he and his erstwhile partner are blackmailed into taking part in a heist A heist is a robbery or burglary, especially from an institution such as a bank or museum. Heist may also refer to: Places *Heist, Germany, a municipality in Schleswig-Holstein *Heist-aan-Zee, West Flanders, Belgium *Heist-op-den-Berg, Antwerp, ... on a cruise liner, and make great efforts to identify and eliminate the blackmailer. References Bibliography * Murphy, Bruce F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Canning
Victor Canning (16 June 1911 – 21 February 1986) was a prolific British writer of novels and thrillers who flourished in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was personally reticent, writing no memoirs and giving relatively few newspaper interviews. Life 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 edu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinemann (publisher)
William Heinemann Ltd., with the imprint Heinemann, was a London publisher founded in 1890 by William Heinemann. Their first published book, 1890's ''The Bondman'', was a huge success in the United Kingdom and launched the company. He was joined in 1893 by Sydney Pawling. Heinemann died in 1920 and Pawling sold the company to Doubleday, having worked with them in the past to publish their works in the United States. Pawling died in 1922 and new management took over. Doubleday sold his interest in 1933. Through the 1920s, the company was well known for publishing works by famous authors that had previously been published as serials. Among these were works by H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, George Moore, Max Beerbohm, and Henry James, among others. This attracted new authors to publish their first editions with the company, including Graham Greene, Edward Upward, J.B. Priestley and Vita Sackville-West. Throughout, the company was also known for its classics an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thriller Novel
Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. The most common genres that overlap with the thriller genre include crime, horror and detective fiction. Characteristics Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said: In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen's Pawn Game
Queen's Pawn Game broadly refers to any chess opening starting with the move 1.d4, which is the second most popular opening move after 1.e4 ( King's Pawn Game). Terminology The term "Queen's Pawn Game" is usually used to describe openings beginning with 1.d4 where White does not play the Queen's Gambit. The most common Queen's Pawn Game openings are: * The London System, 2.Bf4 or 2.Nf3 and 3.Bf4 * The Trompowsky Attack, 1...Nf6 2.Bg5 and the Pseudo-Trompowsky 1...d5 2.Bg5 * The Torre Attack, 2.Nf3 and 3.Bg5 * The Stonewall Attack, 2.e3 * The Colle System, 2.Nf3 and 3.e3, * The King's Fianchetto Opening, 2.Nf3 and 3.g3 * The Barry Attack, 1...Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 * The Richter–Veresov Attack, 1...d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bg5 or 1...Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bg5 * The Blackmar–Diemer Gambit, 1...d5 2.e4, and the Hübsch Gambit 1...Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e4 In the ''Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings'' (''ECO''), Closed Games (1.d4 d5) are classified under codes D00–D69. Openings where B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Elizabeth 2
''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship, named as the second ship named ''Queen Elizabeth'', was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was then laid up until converted and since 18 April 2018 has been operating as a floating hotel in Dubai. ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' was designed for the transatlantic service from her home port of Southampton, UK, to New York, United States and was named after the earlier Cunard liner . She served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by in 2004. ''Queen Elizabeth 2'' was designed in Cunard's offices in Liverpool and Southampton and built in Clydebank, Scotland. She was considered the last of the transatlantic ocean liners until "Project Genesis" was announced by Cunard Line in 1995 after the business purchase of Cunard by Mickey Arison; chairman of Carnival and Carnival UK. Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ocean Liner
An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called ''liners''. The category does not include ferry, ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the primary purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers, even those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers. Some shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners". Ocean liners are usually strongly built with a high Freeboard (nautical), freeboard to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean. Additionally, they are often designed with thicker H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Carver
Rex Carver is a fictional British private eye created by the prolific writer Victor Canning. He appeared in four fast-paced, irreverently narrated novels in the 1960s. In the book preceding the novels, ''The Limbo Line'' (1963), the Government agency that Carver is unwillingly drawn into is described for the first time. It introduces Richard Manston, a retired agent drawn back into the world of spies, who also appears as a character in some of the later Rex Carver books. Although strictly a private investigator, Carver knows a number of people who work for a shadowy British undercover agency and he frequently runs into both enemy agents and hostile British agents during his adventures. It is by no means a stretch to call his adventures spy thrillers or to consider Carver himself a secret agent of sorts. Rex Carver novels * ''The Whip Hand ''The Whip Hand'' is a 1951 American film directed by William Cameron Menzies and starring Carla Balenda and Elliott Reid. Plot Journ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confidence Trickster
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ..intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". Terminology Synonyms include con, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, scam, and stratagem. The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or "con trick") is often referred to as a confidence (or "con") man, con-artist, or a "grifter". The shell game dates back at least to Ancient Greece. Samuel Thompson (1821–1856) was the original "confidence man". Thompson was a clumsy swindler who asked his victims to express confidence in him by giving him money or their watch rather than gaining their confidenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackmailed
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. These acts can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property. Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion. Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm. Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt. In many jurisdictions, bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theft
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as larceny, robbery, embezzlement, extortion, blackmail, or receiving stolen property. In some jurisdictions, ''theft'' is considered to be synonymous with ''larceny'', while in others, ''theft'' is defined more narrowly. Someone who carries out an act of theft may be described as a "thief" ( : thieves). ''Theft'' is the name of a statutory offence in California, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and the Australian states of South Australia Theft (and receiving). and Victoria. Theft. Elements The '' actus reus'' of theft is usually defined as an unauthorized taking, keeping, or using of another's property which must be accompanied by a '' mens rea'' of dish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1969 British Novels
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to London's Gatwick Airport, killing 50 of the 62 people on board and two of the home's occupants. * January 14 – An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise'' near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314. * January 19 – End of the siege of the University of Tokyo, marking the beginning of the end for the 1968–69 Japanese university protests. * January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. * January 22 – An assassination attempt is carried out on Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev by deserter Viktor Ilyin. One person is killed, several are injured. Brezhnev escaped unharmed. * January 27 ** Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel. ** Revere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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