"The Case of a very loose canon: The Shane Martin 'pot-boilers' of George Johnston"

We are first introduced to the character of Professor Ronald Challis in shane Martin's detective fiction twelve Girls in the Garden (1957) as he walks idly beside the river Thames, which "on this particular evening," the third person narration informs us, "was the river of Turner rather than of Whistler" (3). As challis strolls from Pimlico to Chelsea, he muses on the circumstances that have recently led him from an archaeological dig in Greece to London. For "no reason at all" he then begins to think about past friends and the dwelling they once inhabited in nearby Tite street (4). (It was in this street in Chelsea, and in the same house once owned by James Mcneill Whistler, that the Australian artist Colin Colahan and his wife Ursula lived during World War Two. Twelve Girls in the Garden is dedicated to them both "for fun.")