This was Canning's eighth post-war book for Hodder and Stoughton, published in 1955 at 10/6 with a print run of 11,500 copies. The US edition by William Sloane Associates actually came out in 1954 under the title A Handful of Silver, making it the true first edition. The Companion Book Club combined edition of 1957, pairing it with The Hidden Face and selling for 5/-, must have sold very well; second-hand copies of this edition are still plentiful. There was a paperback in 1962 with a print run of 25,000, and a Heinemann uniform edition in 1971 at 18/-, reissued after decimalisation in 1973 at £2.30. There was another paperback edition in 1980 by Sundial Publications, for sale in Marks and Spencer stores. This was marred by some very poor proofreading.
It is the first of Canning's books to use first-person narration since Atlantic Company in 1940.
It was filmed in 1964 under the title Masquerade, with Jack Hawkins and Cliff Robertson, directed by Basil Dearden. A review of the movie by David Vineyard has been posted on the Mystery*File blog site.
The British edition but not the American one has the dedication "To my wife".
The book is set mainly in France, and concerns the guarding of a young Arab boy, the heir to an oil sheikhdom, against kidnappers.
 US first edition |
 UK first edition |
 Book Club |
 Uniform edition 1973 |
 1980 paperback |
 Movie poster |
| Index of characters, locations and themes (in preparation) | ||