Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose (UK 2021)

From the Publisher:
Fifteen-year-old Smiler is still on the run.
Smiler is aiming to evade the police until his father, a ship's cook, comes home to clear him of a crime he hasn't committed. Hitching a train to Scotland, he finds work as an animal caretaker within the grounds of a castle occupied by 'the Laird', Sir Alec Elphinstone.

When the Laird leaves on a trip to London, Smiler discovers that thieves are planning to invade his employer's castle.

Dare he go to the police for help?

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose. The Smiler Trilogy 2. Farrago, ISBN: 9781788423502 (August, 2021), 225 p., £8.99, eBook £2.99.

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose (UK 1978)

From the Publisher:
'Smiler' has to stay in hiding until his father comes home to clear him of a crime he hasn't committed, so he gets work in an animal sanctuary in Scotland, only to discover thieves planning to invade his employer's castle. And how dare he go to the police for help?

The second absorbing adventure in Victor Canning's trilogy, of which the first was The Runaways.

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose. Puffin Books, ISBN: 0140310460 (January, 1979), 190 p., 65p.

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose (USA 1973)

From the Publisher:
All the enchantment, the appeal to both young and old, of Victor Canning's greatly popular The Runaways are rekindled in this second adventure of his resourceful hero, Smiler M...

FLIGHT OF THE GREY GOOSE
by Victor Canning
Author of Firecrest, The Rainbird Pattern, etc.

Smiler, now almost sixteen, is again on the lam, determined to stay free of the police until his father -- at sea on the Kentucky Master -- returns to establish his innocence.

From Salisbury Plain, his present adventures take him far, far north in the highlands of Scotland. Near Fort William he and a wounded greylag goose are given shelter on a loch island by a wise old surgeon whom Smiler's girl friend-locally acquired at the same time as the greylag-introduces as the Laird.

The Laird's castle should be safe enough. But, as the greylag's wing is slowly mending, avaricious men watch the activity on the island and plot against it. Smiler needs his wits and his courage, too, in the last violent confrontation with Morgan and his tough chief mate.

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose. A Novel by the author of THE RUNAWAYS. William Morrow, ISBN: 0688001769 (September, 1973), 224 p., $6.95.

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose (UK 1973)

From the Publisher:
FLIGHT OF THE GREY GOOSE
follows the enormous success of The Runaways, the first of Victor Canning's adventure stories about Smiler, now almost sixteen. After his escape from approved school, Smiler (Samuel Miles) became the foster parent of a pair of orphaned cheetah cubs on Salisbury Plain.

In Flight of the Grey Goose Smiler is again on the run, determined to stay free of the police until his father -- at sea in the Kentucky Master -- returns to establish his innocence. His adventures take him north to Scotland. Near Fort William he and a wounded greylag goose are given shelter on a loch island by a wise old surgeon whom Smiler' girlfriend introduces as the Laird.

The Laird's castle should be safe enough. But, as the old grey goose's wing is lowly mending, greedy men watch the activity on the island and plot. Smiler needs his wits and his courage in the last stormy confrontation with Billy Morgan and his tough Chief Mate.

All Victor Canning's great love and knowledge of the countryside are reflected in the Scottish island sanctuary he has created here. The long hot summer days spent fishing on the loch or tending sick creatures in the Laird's "Surgery", with Dobby the three-footed otter and Bacon the hopeless dog; milking Mrs. Brown the cow, above all waiting for Laggy the grey goose to fly -- these together make an idyll, as real as any summer in childhood, as precise as any location on the map.

And running swiftly through it all is the undercurrent of chilling suspense and excitement so characteristic of Victor Canning, acclaimed by V. S. Pritchett as "a master of his craft".

Victor Canning: Flight of the Grey Goose. Heinemann, ISBN: 0434107824 (March, 1973), 225 p., £2.10.