Forgotten Book - Send for Paul Temple

I've mentioned before that Francis Durbridge's Paul Temple is one of my guilty pleasures. I'm delighted to say that Harper Collins have just reissued five early Paul Temple books - all adapted from radio serials, - and I've just gulped down the first of them, Send for Paul Temple, my Forgotten Book for today. I'd previously listened to an audio version of this story, but it was still an entertaining example of the ripping yarn. Durbridge was no Tolstoy, but he knew how to keep his readers/listeners interested.

There's a mystery, incidentally, about the authorship of this book. What happened was that Durbridge, a young man of 25, created Paul Temple for the radio,and the success of this story prompted thousands of listeners to demand more of the same - suffice to say that Durbridge certainly obliged them, as Temple became an immensely popular long-running character. Durbridge also turned the story into a novel, but for that he had a co-writer, John Thewes, who seems rather to have been airbrushed from history.

I've consulted Melvyn Barnes, the greatest authority on Durbridge, and he is fairly sure that Thewes was a pen-name for Charles Hatton, who co-wrote several Temple books as Hatton. But why he adopted a pen-name for one collaboration and not others is unclear. Or maybe Charles Hatton was another pseudonym? Possibly he worked for the BBC, but information about him is scant.I, and indeed Melvyn, would be glad to learn more

One of the reasons I mention this little mystery, by the way, is that I've recently been sent some fascinating info about Gerald Findler, the ultra-obscure author of a story I included in Resorting to Murder. Not even that legendary mine of information Bob Adey had been able to trace any details about Findler, but a correspondent has now told me quite a bit about him. So often, interesting know-how is out there; the challenge is to get hold of it. But the internet, for all its quirks and unreliability, does make the task easier.

Anyway, back to Paul Temple. Scotland Yard is baffled by a series of jewel robberies in the Midlands. The only clue is the dying words of two members of the gang who helped with "inside jobs" before being murdered for their pains. But what is the significance of the words "The Green Finger"? The Press campaign noisily for Temple, a wealthy writer and criminologist, to be consulted by the Yard.

Soon the great man finds himself in the thick of it. Luckily, he meets a pretty and dynamic blonde reporter who uses the alias Steve Trent, and has her own reasons to help him. In the course of their attempts to solve the mystery, they fall in love. As we now know, they lived happily - and very adventurously - ever after.

Send for Paul Temple

Send for Paul Temple, the very first Paul Temple serial, is now available on CD, and I enjoyed listening to it in the car. It’s not the original version, which presumably has been lost, but rather a truncated version read (very well, I thought) by Anthony Head.

This story introduces Temple, who is at this point living in a country house near Evesham. He is a journalist turned best-selling detective novelist, who has made his name as a sleuth by solving a real-life crime. When a series of jewel robberies take place which baffle Scotland Yard, a media campaign demands that the police should send for Paul Temple to help them solve the mystery.

It turns out that this campaign has been orchestrated by a gorgeous young journalist called Steve Trent, who turns out to be Louise Harvey, the sister of a detective who is murdered in a mysterious inn, The Little General, shortly after talking to Temple. Louise disguised her identity because her brother was afraid that a villainous diamond thief, ‘the Knave of Diamonds’, whom he encountered in South Africa would murder him – and it seems that the Knave is now back in business in England. Soon it becomes clear that (somehow, I don’t know how) he has penetrated the highest ranks of the police.

The plot is, if viewed in the cold light of day, quite barmy. Durbridge was only 25 when he wrote the serial, and some elements of the story seem juvenile to the modern crime fan. And yet there is a zest about the story, with its dying messages, secret lift and passage, and brainless Chief Commissioner of Police and other detectives, that makes it lively entertainment. For me, the Paul Temple serials are something of a guilty pleasure, but for all the creakiness of the dialogue and plot devices, they certainly are a pleasure.