Crime novelist and detective Paul Temple and his glamorous wife Steve made their first appearance on BBC Radio in 1938. They inhabited a sophisticated world of chilled cocktails and fast cars, where the women were chic and the men wore cravats where Sir Graham Forbes, of Scotland Yard, usually needed Temple's help with his latest case.
Arctic explorer, survival expert and naturalist Freddy Spencer Chapman was trapped behind enemy lines when the Japanese overran Malaya in 1942. His response was to begin a commando campaign of such lethal effectiveness that the Japanese deployed an entire regiment against him, hunting for him as they did for no other. He was wounded, and racked by tropical disease. His companions were killed, or captured...