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FRANCIS DURBRIDGE
Design for Murder
PLUS
Paul Temple’s White Christmas
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MELVYN BARNES
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
John Long 1951
‘Paul Temple’s White Christmas’ first published in Radio Times 1946
Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1946, 1951
All rights reserved
Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008242077
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008242060
Version: 2017-09-26
Table of Contents
Chapter I: Death of a Policewoman
Chapter II: A Lift From Doctor Fraser
Chapter III: The Cottage on the Cliff
Chapter IV: Sir Donald Angus Is Perturbed
Chapter V: The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Chapter VI: Mr Linder Has an Alibi
Chapter VII: Miss Beaumont Remembers
Chapter VIII: A Warrant for Mr Luigi
Chapter IX: A Woman’s Intuition
Chapter X: Guest Night at the Palais
Chapter XII: Presenting: ‘Mr Rossiter’
In November 1951, when John Long published Design for Murder, Francis Durbridge (1912–1998) had for many years been the most popular writer of mystery thrillers for BBC radio and was soon to make his mark on television and in the theatre. He remains best known as the creator of the novelist-detective Paul Temple, who first appeared in the 1938 BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple. This was an immediate hit, and led to Paul and his wife Steve rapidly becoming cult figures of the airwaves in the sequels Paul Temple and the Front Page Men (1938), News of Paul Temple (1939), Paul Temple Intervenes (1942), Send for Paul Temple Again (1945) and many more. These first five radio serials were all novelised, published by John Long between 1938 and 1948, and most recently reissued in 2015 by Collins Crime Club.
In 1950 there was an interesting development in Durbridge’s career with the publication of Back Room Girl, a novel that was not based on any of his radio serials. He followed this in April 1951 with Beware of Johnny Washington, a rewrite of his first novel Send for Paul Temple with various plot changes and a new set of characters, including replacements for Paul and Steve.
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