Fri 4 Apr 2014
Reviewed by David Vineyard: JEREMY LLOYD – The Further Adventures of Captain Gregory Dangerfield.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
JEREMY LLOYD – The Further Adventures of Captain Gregory Dangerfield. Michael Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1973. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1974. No paperback edition.
Henry Wordsworth Potts writes detective stories, and none too successfully, that is until he borrows a typewriter, an old Imperial, to finish his latest opus, and discovers the machine is haunted.
Much to his surprise his fingers leap across the keys and type out The Further Adventures of Captain Gregory Dangerfield, and a voice, strikingly like that of George Sanders, informs him that he is now under the control of the late P.W. Arnold, author of the Dangerfield series, and will not only write the book, but live them.
And with that his everyday life at the boarding house at Ranliegh Road in Streatham becomes rife with international adventure, beautiful scantily clad women, and dastardly villains with Potts now dashing about in Dangerfield’s Bugatti Royale — the one given him by King Zog of Roumania…
By turns increasingly funny, and increasingly mad, the book follows our poor Mr. Potts as he is plunged into Dangerfield’s world replete with super-villains, femme fatales, deadly traps, and increasingly embarrassing situations — like when he washes ashore on a tropical beach:
“But Captain Gregory Dangerfield,” said P.W. Arnold admiringly, “with his incredible powers of recovery had already got his strength back, and holding Zola with his arms of steel, while she rained kisses on his handsome salty lips, he carried her to shore.”
In any other circumstances Mr. Potts would have enjoyed Miss Martin’s attentions, but her hot kisses, some of them on his spectacles, made it hard to see.
The Author, ignoring his plight, continued, ‘And so, looking like a Greek god, bearing Aphrodite in his arms, Dangerfield’s magnificent bronzed naked body emerged from the sea.”
Mr. Potts spluttered and his heart missed a beat. He’d been pleased to hear he was bronzed; but naked! He clutched tightly to Miss Martin, he mustn’t put her down. But he certainly was naked … this was already an extremely dangerous situation.
And in the true tradition of thrillers and spoofs things go from bad to worse for Mr. Potts, but at the same time he begins to rather enjoy being Captain Gregory Dangerfield.
The Further Adventures of Captain Gregory Dangerfield is a pleasant romp through the fields of thriller fiction with Mr. Potts and his more pneumatic neighbors, a fine collection of super villains, and the ever inventive P. W. Arnold keeping the pot and Mr. Potts boiling.
Jeremy Lloyd may be more familiar to you as the blonde Englishman who appeared on Laugh In and worked on the show as a writer.
I don’t know that this one will be for all taste, but in the right mood and for anyone who has read enough of these, you may actually be sorry to see the last of Captain Dangerfield. I’d certainly rather spend an evening in his company (and that of Mr. Potts, P.W. Arnold, and the beautiful Zola and Mrs. Harris) than many of the tiresome lot of special forces louts who stumble through today’s thriller fiction.
They don’t write ’em like that anymore. Maybe they never did, but at least they wrote this one, one of those small treasures that you find in the rummage sale, and never forget.
April 5th, 2014 at 11:32 am
This is definitely my kind of book! Thanks for the intro to a book I’d never heard of. Newly added to my “want list” though I’ll have to hold off purchasing a copy. I swore after a *very* expensive book buying binge last month that I would buy mo no more books until the fall. We shall see if I can restrain myself.
April 5th, 2014 at 11:38 am
BTW — I know Jeremy Lloyd much better (and I think everyone else will, too) for his work as actor/writer/creator of Are You Being Served?, that bawdy, innuendo-filled UK sit-com set in a department store. Don’t recall ever seeing him on Laugh-In. He must’ve only been a writer for that show.
April 7th, 2014 at 5:17 pm
I should certainly have mentioned Are You Being Served, but thought some would recall him on Laugh In.
The blond fellow on the cover is a caricature of Lloyd.
I don’t recall him in anything but the opening at the party or club where Goldie Hawn was the Go-Go dancer circulating and making quips.
I’m a huge Served fan myself, and know many in the states are, but I thought more would recall his face from Laugh In.