Smiler Trilogy

3 total works 3 total works planned

The Painted Tent

by Victor Canning

Published 16 April 1974

Can the peregrine falcon, Fria, who has escaped from captivity, learn to fend for herself in the wild? And can Smiler, desperately anxious that Fria should be all right, solve for himself the problem that has kept him in hiding from the police for so long?

The final book in Victor Canning's classic children's trilogy, which began in The Runaways and continued in Flight of the Grey Goose.

Flight of the Grey Goose

by Victor Canning

Published 26 March 1973

'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, and followed by The Painted Tent.

The Runaways

by Victor Canning

Published 7 September 1973

On a night of wild storms, two lonely creatures escape from captivity.

One of the creatures is a boy, Smiler, wrongly convicted of stealing, the other a cheetah, Yarra, leaving the Longleat Wild Life Park to have her cubs in privacy.

Both are in danger from the outside world and each other, but somehow their lives become inextricably bound up as they fight for survival on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

The Runaways is the first book in Victor Canning's classic children's trilogy, which continues in Flight of the Grey Goose.