London's own hard-boiled detective. Slim Callaghan is a fictional London-based private detective created by Cheyney as a British response to the more hardboiled detectives of American fiction such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe (also available as yellowbacks). 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 where actor Tony Wright played Callaghan in three film adaptations. Callaghan is Irish and " suave, handsome, resourceful, Mayfair-based private detective who operates out of an office in Berkeley Square where he frequently encounters attractive, but deceitful femmes fatale".
