Slim Callaghan

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Slim Callaghan is a fictional London-based private detective created by the writer Peter Cheyney. [1] Like another of Cheyney's characters, the FBI agent Lemmy Caution, he was constructed as a British response to the more hardboiled detectives of American fiction such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

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After making his debut in the 1938 novel The Urgent Hangman he featured in six further novels and a number of short stories. The novels were all bestsellers. The character has also appeared in a variety of film, television, radio and stage adaptations. The novels enjoyed particular popularity in France [2] where actor Tony Wright played Callaghan in three film adaptations. [3] Other actors to portray Callaghan include Michael Rennie, Derrick De Marney and Viktor de Kowa who played him in the 1964 German television series Slim Callaghan Intervenes .

Operating out of an office in Mayfair's Berkeley Square he frequently encounters attractive, but deceitful femmes fatales. Callaghan has been described as a "suave, handsome, resourceful, Mayfair-based private detective who is Irish – the nationality was perhaps a tease for Cheyney's patriotic critics". [4]

Novels

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References

  1. Harrison p.108
  2. Knight p.131
  3. Goble p.82
  4. Knight p.131

Bibliography