Francis Durbridge Biography and List of Works

English TV, radio, and mystery writer, whose best-known series character is Paul Temple and his wife Steve. Durbridge was the master of the cliff-hanger and one of the most successful writers for television.

Francis Durbridge was born in Hull Yorkshire. He studied English at Birmingham University and worked briefly as a stockbroker before becoming a full-time writer. In 1940 he married Norah Elizabeth Lawley; they had two sons. Durbridge's first book, Send for Paul Temple (1938), collaboration with John Thewes, was a novelization of radio serial about Paul Temple. Durbridge wrote Temple stories for BBC from 1938 to 1968. In the 1960s he created for TV a new series character, Tim Frazer, who also appeared in three books.

In Durbridge's novels usually dialogue dominates, which sometimes reveal that they were originally written for radio or television. His characters belong to the middle-class and have much time to devote themselves in solving crimes - or planning them. The protagonist is sometimes a suspect who tries to free himself from the web of intrigues. In the film The Vicious Circle (1957) an actress is found dead in Dr Latimer's flat and the weapon turn up in the boot of his car. Then another body is found and again all the clues lead to Latimer.

Durbridge published 35 novels, several of them were based on his TV or radio series. Several of his books were written in collaboration with other writers, among them John Thewes, Douglas Rutherford, and Charles Hatton. Paul Temple was credited as the author of his own adventures, which Durbridge wrote with Rutherford. In 1997 Alan Bleasdale created his own version of Durbridge's 1960s BBC serial Melissa, in which a war correspondent, Guy Foster, falls in love with a beautiful but mysterious Melissa. Bleasdale described the mystery detective story as his "homage and tribute to one of this country's finest thriller writers."

PAUL TEMPLE: One of the most successful detective characters ever created for broadcasting. Paul Temple is novelist-detective, who selves mysteries with his wife Steve. Temple had a thirty-year career on radio, and continued his adventures also in books from 1938 to the late 1980s. Two of the novels, The Tyler Mystery and East of Algers list Temple as the author. - OTHER RADIO SERIES HEROES: Harry Lime (produced in the 1950s in Britain, see Graham Greene), Dragnet (premiered on radio on NBC in 1949), Perry Mason (CBS soap opera from 1943 to 1955), Nick Carter (on radio from 1943 to 1955) - For further reading: Encyclopaedia Mysteriosa by William L. DeAndrea (1997); St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers, ed. by Jay P. Pederson (1996)

SEND FOR PAUL TEMPLE, (1938)