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In a Sunday Times feature "The Hundred Best Crime Stories" selected by Julian Symons, reprinted as a pamphlet in about 1960, Symons comments: "Just occasionally an author writes a book that stands out from the main body of his work. Venetian Bird is structurally similar to Mr Canning's other very competent thrillers, but it is a long way from them in style and feeling. The shabby private inquiry agent, Mercer, who broods on the fact that 'something has happened to money since the war' so that he is down to third-class hotels and second-class travel, is an admirable central figure to set the tone of this story of love and treachery played out against a Venetian background that is handled with uncommon grace."