This was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1957 at 12/6 with a print run of 11,000. There was a paperback edition in October 1964 at 3/6 with a print run of 20,000. The US edition by W. Sloane Associates appeared in 1957, and there was a paperback under the title The forbidden road in 1959. The serialisation in the magazine Argosy in Jan/Feb/Mar 1957 was an abridged version. The book was included in the Heinemann uniform edition of the 1970s.
The book combines a David-and-Goliath story with a sensitive description of a marriage under strain.
The setting is Majorca where Nick Thorne with his partner Domingo Peroni run a trading company. Peroni has just bid on a salvage contract to recover the cargo of a wrecked freighter. The profit would be £2000, enough to let Nick wind up the partnership and return to England with his wife Kate, something she wants very much. However, the beach where the cargo must be landed is accessible only through the estate of Casares Manasco, and he curtly refuses permission to cross his land.
Nick finds out the reason. Manasco had sent his adopted son Guido to bid for the salvage contract. The boy got drunk in a brothel, boasted about his mission to Peroni, and then overslept, missing the auction, so that Peroni was able to bid unopposed. Guido told Manasco that Peroni drugged his wine to keep him out of the way, which Peroni denies emphatically.
Nick resents Manasco and is determined to recover the cargo, but Manasco is rich and influential enough to stop him hiring lighters locally. Nick does manage to buy one, but this is sabotaged, presumably by Guido and by Manasco's daughter Juana. He secures the help of a young man, Rigo, the son of a local smuggler known as Johnny Manchester because he once worked in Manchester.
Meanwhile Nick finds evidence that his wife has been meeting another man. She admits to having had a brief affair with an American, Ray Asherton, but assures Nick that it is over. He realises that his work absences may have been a factor, and is determined to repair the relationship. He and Kate move onto the wrecked ship while he works out how to frustrate Manasco and get the cargo to Palma.
The most interesting element in this book is the treatment of the relationship between Nick and Kate, which is complex, subtle and persuasive. The final pages leave one fairly confident that they will stay together. Canning's own marriage lasted another twelve years before ending in separation and divorce.
 First edition |
 Foyle's Book Club |
 Uniform edition |
| Index of characters, locations and themes in The Manasco Road (in preparation) | ||