''Panther's Moon'' is a 1948 spy

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. ...

by the British writer

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. ...

. It was his second post-war novel, following ''The Chasm'', as he had largely been taken a break from writing during his wartime service.

Synopsis

Roger Quain is tasked by his

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and uni ...

owner uncle to bring a couple of

black panther A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been ...

s from

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. The next before he leaves Italy he is approached by an attractive young woman who identifies herself as a member of

British intelligence The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and ...

. Urgently needing to smuggle

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...

out of Italy she believes that the panthers offer the perfect opportunity to get them across the border. Things go wrong, however, when their train is derailed in the

Swiss Alps The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Sw ...

and both the panthers and the microfilm disappear.

Film adaptation

In 1950 it was adapted into the American film '' Spy Hunt'' directed by

George Sherman George Sherman (July 14, 1908 – March 15, 1991) was an American film director and producer of low-budget Western films. One obituary said his "credits rival in number those of anyone in the entertainment industry." Biography George Sherman ...

and starring

Howard Duff Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also prob ...

, Märta Torén and Philip Friend.Goble p.69

References

Bibliography

* Burton, Alan. ''Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. * Goble, Alan. ''The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film''. Walter de Gruyter, 1999. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1948 British novels British spy novels British thriller novels Novels set in Italy Novels set in Switzerland British novels adapted into films Novels by Victor Canning Hodder & Stoughton books {{1940s-thriller-novel-stub