Send for Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge

Nor were the shows in any way particularly innovative–they relied heavily on a handful of much-loved tropes. Still, the stories themselves were often quite suspenseful, and the radio serials were full of edge-of-your-seat ending, but nobody was ever going to mistake Temple for a member of the hard-boiled school–after all, he smoked a pipe and his favourite expletive was “By Timothy.” They were structured very much in the manner of a traditional mystery, up to and including the concluding gathering of the suspects, and were invariably set in the genteel world of the upper classes, even if Temple himself is closer to Sherlock Homesthan, say, Miss Marple. Also frequently lending a hand is Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard, who would join the couple at the end of each show to offer a post-mortem of sorts on the case at hand. Temple is a mystery author turned private eye (and shit magnet–trouble just seems to follow him), who is frequently “sent for” by Scotland Yard to “help out.” Aiding him in almost all of his investigations is his faithful journalist wife, Louise, known to one and all as “Steve,” after her writing pen name of Steve Trent. But his main stomping ground was radio–the show was good for a whopping thirty-year run, initially airing on the BBC and then sent out internationally with the result that Paul Temple, even now, has fans all over the world. He made his first appearance in a BBC radio serial in 1938 and went on to appear in further radio serials, several novels, four feature films, a BBC television series in the sixties and even a long-running daily comic strip that lasted almost twenty years. and much of the Commonwealth, and his exploits entertained millions of fans around the world. Once upon a time, one of the most popular private detectives of all time was PAUL TEMPLE.īut Temple ruled the U.K. “By Timothy!” Anthony Hulme and Joy Shelton in the 1946 film Send for Paul Temple.

Send for Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge