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.

Paul Temple Intervenes

Dating from 1942, Paul Temple Intervenes is an early radio drama written by Francis Durbridge has been exhumed from the BBC archives and is now available as a two-CD set. The sound quality (especially of the sometimes startling incidental music) is not great, but so many gems have been lost by the BBC that one is grateful for those that have survived. And I enjoyed listening to it whilst commuting.

This was one of the first Temple serials, and the writing, production and acting were not as slick as they later became. Carl Bernard and Bernadette Hodgson are, for instance, not as appealing in the roles of suave detective novelist and amateur sleuth Temple and his wife Steve, as Geoffrey Coke and Marjorie Westbury. The famous theme tune, ‘The Coronation Scot’, had not yet been adopted, and the dialogue is sometimes ponderous (people keep saying things like, ‘I do not think I have had the pleasure, Mrs Temple’ and are laboriously well-mannered on every occasion).

The plot has its eccentric moments. A serial killer called The Marquis has seven victims to his name, and yet we never learn much about the victims, nor why they were killed. It is taken for granted that The Marquis is a blackmailer, but we never find out how he discovered so much incriminating material. The story is really taken up with the hunt for The Marquis (whose techniques for avoiding justice struck me as pretty weird) and there are the usual cliffhanger endings for each of the eight episodes.

With so many drawbacks, perhaps I shouldn’t have liked this serial as much as I did. Of course, it’s very dated, but it definitely has an eccentric charm, to add to its considerable historic interest. As usual, Durbridge shifts suspicion from one suspect to another with consummate ease. He had a great gift for maintaining suspense, and if you like old radio shows, I think you may enjoy this one as I did.

What Santa Brought

I had a lovely Christmas Day and I do hope you did too. Amongst other pleasures, I was lucky that Santa recognised my continuing fascination with crime fiction, and delivered many good things that will keep me occupied for a long time to come. They will also, no doubt, provide plenty of material for future blog posts.

I’ve already dipped into a lavishly illustrated guide, Agatha Christie’s Devon, by Bret Hawthorne, and read the chapter about Burgh Island, which provided the setting for And Then There Were None, and Evil Under the Sun. I do love islands, and it is a place I am really keen to visit one day.

I also received four audio books on CD featuring Francis Durbridge’s most famous creation, Paul Temple. I’ve enjoyed a good many of the Temple audio books – they are fun to listen to whilst commuting, and the new ones will definitely improve my tedious journey to and from work.

Among the new DVDs, there’s an absolute gem – The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. I received the anthology which inspired the TV series as a Christmas present when I was a teenager, and not long afterwards, I watched some of the episodes on the box. I look forward to seeing the rest of them, at long last, during the course of 2010.

Forgotten Book - The Doll

Resuming my contributions to Patti Abbott's series, Friday's Forgotten Books, here is my take on The Doll by Francis Durbridge:

'This 1982 novel, based on a television series which came out seven years earlier, shows Durbridge at his best. The protagonist is not Durbridge's regular sleuth Paul Temple, but wealthy publisher Peter Matty who, when in the company of his brother Claude, a famous pianist, meets an attractive woman at Geneva airport. Soon he bumps into her again and learns that her name is Phyllis du Salle. An air of mystery clings to her that fascinates Peter – and when she vanishes unexpectedly, he becomes obsessed with tracking her down and discovering the truth behind her apparently secretive life. A macabre toy – the doll of the title – is found floating in the bath, an image that lingers in the memory.

The constant twists of the narrative, coupled with its unrelenting pace, make this a very suspenseful book. Although Durbridge was not as good a writer as Cornell Woolrich, and in particular lacked the American master’s ability to create emotional resonance in his situations, he was at least equal to Woolrich in devising storylines that tantalise and intrigue.

Almost inevitably – and this is also true of Woolrich – the solution to the mystery is a bit of a let-down and the explanation for the use of the doll seemed to me to be unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, Durbridge offers a very good red herring and a neat final shuffle of the rather slim pack of suspects. An excellent light read.'