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RUSSELL BRADDON



Russell Braddon born in Sydney, Australia, and educated at Sydney University came to England in 1949 to recuperate from an illness incurred during a period of almost four years as a Japanese POW, an experience described in his now classic book, The Naked Island. The subject matter of his novels ranges from drugs (The Inseparables) to political satire (The Year of the Angry Rabbit), from romance (Prelude and Fugue for Lovers) to horror (Committal Chamber), from adventure (Will You Walk a Little Faster?) to colour prejudice (The Proud American Boy) and psychiatric treatment (Gabriel Comes to 24), from wild humour (The Progress of  Private Lilyworth) to grim prophecy (When the Enemy is Tired), from displaced youth (Those in Peril) to post-war communism in Europe (Out of the Storm), from psychological suspense (End Play) and the study of a destructive woman (The Predator) to assassination of the Queen (The Finalists).
THE COMPLETE NOVELS
1954
THOSE IN PERIL: Willie Knox loved the sea. He was proud of the Navy - until they sent him ashore. Then he became embittered and deserted. Willie was on the run. In the squalid back streets, among the dregs of a great capital's underworld, Willie soon discovered that you can't defy the world without paying a price. Only a real tough guy could keep out of trouble: Willie wasn't tough enough. This powerful and racy story reveals the rebellious Willie adrift in a seamy world of vice with its petty crooks, razor gangs and prostitutes. R7? RR78 RR0112
1956
OUT OF THE STORM:  R7? RR7/78
1958
GABRIEL COMES TO 24: Novel of mental illness, Ward 24 being ‘the psychotic ward’ R7? RR8/78

1960


THE PROUD AMERICAN BOY: Russell Braddon's novel makes fictional use of the shocking incident some years ago when a Negro boy of eight was tried and convicted in the South for molesting a white female of the same age. In fact, it seems, they exchanged a kiss. The book is involved with Roy Jackson, his family and way of life, before learning that they are Negro. The impact of this revelation is effectively and honestly written. Much of the balance of the book dramatizes the social economic-political aspects of the case, through many different factious: the KKK, NAACP. the press, the local politicians (a governor, a senator), the prominent Negroes who want no part of it, and ordinary people, both black and white. Only at the end, when Roy's fate is determined, does the closing section movingly suggest the answer to brotherhood.R7?
1964 THE YEAR OF THE ANGRY RABBIT: Mutant rabbits wreak havoc in Australia. An amusing satire of social and political corruption with Australia as a superpower leading the world.??
1966
COMMITTAL CHAMBER: Three men and their women are brought to face the truth about themselves in the committal chamber of a crematorium. The truth is not the picture which they present to the world, nor is it the obverse, the instant alternative, which springs to mind. It is something less contrived, more devious, more true to life, more casual. It is something more real. It captures the imagination: reducing men and women to their basic essentials. There are no concessions to convention here. Men and women are really like this. This is the truth about them. Looking death in the eye, this is really how they live. Here is an outstanding novel by a major author. R7? RR10/11
1968
THE INSEPARABLES is a search for an answer: what would we have done in Hitler's Germany? And how can we find out when we weren't there and the Hitler time is past? Admittedly we can still visit the scenes of Nazidom's worst crimes; but how can we so turn back the clock as to be involved in them? Russell Braddon's solution to this problem is fascinating. He sends a Berlin student on a Christmas Day pilgrimage to Dachau and then drugs him with L.S.D. and almost at once his heightened susceptibilities respond to the camp's ambience of past but incredible evils. Having imagined himself alone, he encounters four others - each of them a victim of Dachau, and each of them contemptuous of his student attitudes to Germany's past and present guilt. And, as the L.S.D. with which he has drugged himself dislocates his sense of time, they force him to re-live with them the worst horrors of their days of suffering. Required then to take one side or another, he discovers the truths he has sought; and having discovered them, can accept neither them nor himself. Russell Braddon has woven an extraordinary and convincing parable; and in doing so has displayed both compassion for that generation of yesterday that was corrupted and sympathy for the young of today who believe themselves uniquely virtuous. R7? RR12/11
1968
WHEN THE ENEMY IS TIRED: Colonel Russell, an Australian army volunteer is captured by the Chinese in Malaya with seven colleagues, and is put through intensive interrogation by Major Lim. Lim's objective is to break down Russell's resistance and persuade him to broadcast communist propaganda to the West. He forces Russell to write about his childhood in minute detail, and from these memoirs he pieces together a character study of his captive which is brilliant in its observation. When Russell steadfastly refuses to broadcast, Lim forces him to witness the execution of his seven comrades one by one, every dawn, each execution following a pattern taken from Russell's childhood fears and terrors, each one more brutal and horrific than the last. With an astute sense of timing, the author provides a striking contrast between the happy, carefree Australian childhood and the grim, austere and ruthless atmosphere of the interrogation cell, so that one feels almost stifled when the childhood scenes are replaced by the stark reality of the present day. The tension mounts with the horror, as Russell goes practically insane watching his comrades die, and is torn between humanity and principle. Yet this is not merely another story of East versus West. The two central figures, Russell and Lim, are so subtly defined that after hours of compulsive reading one wonders just whose side one is on. R7? RR10/11
1969
WILL YOU WALK A LITTLE FASTER?:??
1971
PRELUDE AND FUGUE FOR LOVERS: R7? RR5/81
1971
THE PROGRESS OF PRIVATE LILYWORTH: R7? RR3/79
1972

END PLAY: 'The body of twenty-three-year-old Janine Talbot was found less than an hour ago in the back row of the stalls of a local cinema ... The police say they are confident that she is the fourth victim, in just over a year, of the murderer known as the Motorway Maniac ... They also say that by now someone must suspect the identity of this murderer, and be protecting him.' 'Would you protect me?' Mark asked his brother, discussing the murders. 'It's a hypothetical question: retorted Robbie, 'and the hypothesis is absurd.' But as a deceptively unsubtle Chief Superintendent, assisted by his apparently dumb Sergeant, probes their relationship, the absurd hypothesis becomes probable fact. Robbie, though, has never allowed himself to be daunted by facts. By instinct a winner, he treats the enquiry as if it were a. game of cards, and though he lacks two of the vital aces, boldly sets out to take every trick. Partnered by Mark, opposed by the two policemen, he plays a comic, bravura game for his brother's life: a game as riveting as the post-mortem that follows it is cynical.
(aka)
THE THIRTEENTH TRICK: Russell Braddon opens this novel of character and suspense with a murder viewed by the victim herself. The body is found in the back row of an English cinema, and it appears that the murderer who victimises only young, blond female hitchhikers has struck for the fourth time in a year. Robbie and Mark, brothers, are the peculiar duo of suspects that a wry, brilliant, and persistent Inspector Cheadle takes on. A series of  "friendly calls" ensues, as Robbie, instinctuaIly competitive and always a winner, treats the inquiry as if it were a game of cards. Lacking two vital aces, he sets out to take every trick, undaunted. Robbie's bitter, dictatorial and dominating personality and his crippled body cause him to be equally likely and unlikely as a maniacal murderer. Yet Mark's good looks, brotherly solicitude and scrupulous honesty raise questions about his guilt - is he not too good to be true? The question unresolved until very last pages is: Who is the target of the investigation? Throughout private conversations between the two brothers the reader vainly searches for conclusive evidence and must wait for thirteenth trick to find the fatal flaw and place the blame.
O+O-R7? RR7/78 RR03/11
1977
THE FINALISTS: The Finalists is the story of the most sensational tennis match ever played on the revered Centre Court at Wimbledon. Sensational because the contenders for the coveted men's singles title are universal favorites as well as friends and doubles partners; because their match is to produce the longest, most stunning five sets in tennis history; and because, unbeknownst to the 16,000 spectators, an insane and ingenious crime has been set in motion that will make this the most tense and deadly contest ever. As the first ball skims the net a mysterious caller informs the club secretary that unless the priceless Koh-i-Noor diamond is delivered by helicopter from the Tower of London to Court 15, not only will the Queen be shot in the Royal Box as she applauds the eventual winner of the tournament, but so will the new champion. While the police scramble to locate the killer, the tennis on the court is as tremendous as expected, but never more startling than in the fifth set, when both players discover the truth and realize that he who defeats the other and wins the cup will also lose his life. The Finalists is a tour de force: a skilful blend of astonishingly well-documented championship tennis with all the ingredients that make a fast-paced, tension-packed thriller. O-R1/78 RR10/11
1980
THE PREDATOR: Lydia Clayton has a mystifying talent for luring the famous into her salon, and then a pathological compulsion to destroy them. Using suspense as a catalyst, Russell Braddon explores the character of a ruthless manipulator at last made overtly destructive by an anonymous threat of death. Aware that she will die before dawn should she fail to expose her would-be executioner - who must be one of her five companions on a global flight in a privately owned DC 10 - Lydia counter-attacks, not to save her own life but to preserve the one thing in her life that matters - the domination of her circle of 'adoring friends'. Thus she demolishes the pedestal upon which she has allowed each of her celebrated victims to stand; but, at the same time, strips herself of her mask of glittering, brittle charm. As tension rises to a horrifying climax. The Predator confirms Russell Braddon's status as a disconcertingly perceptive and imaginative writer, who refuses to be categorised, but invariably enthrals. O-R9/81 RR10/11
1990
FUNNELWEB: 'Like all multiple killers, the Spider Maniac, as you people call him - or Fred the Nutter as we refer to him - is an egocentric loner. He doesn't kill for gain, or revenge, he kills to attract attention: and he will go on killing until we catch him, which we will because - and listen to this, Fred: I know you're watching- because you crave publicity and we now know so much about you and your plan that you're running out of time.'  Detective Chief Inspector Cheadle, displaying characteristic sang-froid at a televised press conference, is facing one of the Yard's most complex investigations: an against-the-clock hunt for a rational but ruthless psychopath who uses deadly Australian spiders to claim his victims. These include the world's most beautiful man and greatest dancer; a rich Hungarian playboy known as 'the bonking baronet'; and an aristocratic pop musician, lead singer of the Phallic Cymbals. But who will be next in the plan to murder VIPs? As Christopher Westbury, brilliant violinist, pursues his terrible purpose, his venomous killers ready in their moist lair, the police move in and a dramatic finale unfolds outside Covent Garden's Royal Opera House. Funnelweb is an extremely well-plotted and fast-paced detective novel. Because the murderer's identity is revealed at the outset, this is no whodunnit; but suspense grows as the murderer's game plan is revealed, and it is heightened by the possibility that the police will be unable to save his most exalted victim from his fifth and final killing. O-R95 RR11/11
SELECTED NON-FICTION
1950
THE PIDDINGTONS
Sydney Piddington (1918 – 29 January 1991) and Lesley Piddington (born 1925) were an Australian husband and wife mentalism team who performed as The Piddingtons and gave one of the most famous stage and radio telepathy acts of modern times. R12/11
BIOGRAPHY
2011
PROUD AUSTRALIAN BOY - A BIOGRAPHY OF RUSSELL BRADDON by Nigel Starck
Burma Railway survivor and prolific man of letters Russell Braddon has left a remarkable legacy: a prisoner-of-war memoir, The Naked Island, selling two million copies and still in print sixty years later; a total of twenty-nine books including the acclaimed novel The Proud American Boy and biographies of Joan Sutherland, Nancy Wake, and Leonard Cheshire VC; a series of television documentaries, notably the 1988 Australian Bicentenary series Images of Australia; thirty years as a prominent radio broadcaster; and twenty-five years as chairman of the Society of Australian Writers, London. In an eventful life (1921-1995) he also developed a telepathy act that topped the bill at the London Palladium, wrote commentaries and features for major newspapers, and led a political action group opposed to Britain's Common Market entry. This biography investigates those many challenges and achievements. R11/11
OBITUARY
RUSSELL BRADDON (1921-1995)


Braddon sketched by Ronald Searle, his fellow prisoner of war in Changi and illustrator of his best-selling The Naked Island (1952).
 These drawings, wrote Searle, `were scribbled down in odd moments on precious scraps of paper'.

  The Independent by Jim Whitehand, Braddon's former amanuensis and business manager

"There were twenty-two steps altogether from the courtyard of the gaol up to the cells. I had got into the habit of counting those steps. Made them seem shorter, or easier. Anyway I had got into the habit of counting. And at the fourteenth I stopped, done. Because I could go no further, I lowered myself on to the step above me and took stock of my surroundings." So begins The Naked Island, the book by Russell Braddon which chronicles his four years as a Japanese prisoner of war after the brief, but disastrous, Malayan campaign of 1942. Published in 1952, The Naked Island sold over a million copies by the mid-Seventies.

Born in Sydney, Australia, Braddon studied law at Sydney University after being demobilised in 1946. Despite having a successful barrister father, Braddon had little aptitude or interest in law and failed his degree in 1948. Soon after, as a result of his POW experiences, he suffered a breakdown and following a failed suicide attempt was advised by doctors to spend a year recuperating, which he chose to do in the "home country" of England.

Braddon arrived in 1949 and met up with an ex-POW friend, Sidney Piddington, who after demobilisation had invited Braddon to join him in a telepathic act based on mind games they had played in prison, to keep themselves sane. Braddon declined, but Piddington had found another partner in his wife-to-be, Lesley. Braddon became their manager; the act became hugely successful and Braddon was volunteered to write their biography. (Braddon's Who's Who entry reads: "Failed law finals; began writing by chance, 1949; been writing ever since".) The Piddingtons was published in 1950.

The Naked Island followed in 1952. The day of publication - 6 February - was an unfortunate choice, as it was the day that King George VI died. All coverage of it was bumped off the pages of the newspapers - except for a review by Guy Ramsey in the Daily Telegraph, which praised the book's enthusiasm and forthrightness. The book's initial print-run of 10,000 was reduced to 3,000.

But then, triggered no doubt by Ramsey's praise and by word of mouth, sales picked up. By the end of March total sales exceeded 70,000 copies. By the end of the summer demand was over 100,000. The book had touched a nerve. Nothing had really been written about the Japanese war before and The Naked Island is a fine document of the period. One critic wrote: "It is a great book because of its stark realism, its Swift-like satire, its searing irony." Many regarded it as possibly the finest war book ever written. The play of the same name which Braddon wrote and which opened in 1959 had a similarly enthusiastic response from the critics, but never took off.

Many of Braddon's POW friends also achieved success, interestingly, among them the artist Ronald Searle (illustrator of The Naked Island) and Alexander Downer, later High Commissioner of Australia to the United Kingdom, as well as an Australian squash champion and a Lord Mayor of York.

Braddon went on to write many biographies, notably Nancy Wake (1956), Cheshire VC (1954), Joan Sutherland (1962), and Roy Thomson of Fleet Street (1965), and novels including Those in Peril (1954), Out of the Storm (1965), When the Enemy is Tired (1968) and The Proud American Boy (1960). His subjects ranged from drugs to political satire, romance to horror, thriller to gritty realism, wild humour to grim prophecy, from displaced youth to post-war Communism and the assassination of the Queen.

Braddon also wrote books on history, politics and exploration including The Siege (1969) and Suez: splitting of a nation (1973); a number of plays, short stories; and hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines. He was a well-known broadcaster, appearing as a panellist on the BBC's Any Questions? and from the mid-Eighties made television documentaries. His BBC documentary The Murray River won the Bafta award for 1985. A number of Braddon's books have been filmed, including End Play and The Year of the Angry Rabbit, and two more are in the process of being filmed, including The Naked Island (the film rights have been bought many many times before, and it has yet to reach the cinemas).

Russell Braddon was a brilliant and humorous conversationalist and was one of Britain's most successful lecturers and after-dinner speakers, until he retired from the platform three years ago. He had a wonderful sense of humour which endeared him to the numerous societies to whom he lectured. His hobbies were bridge, watching Wimbledon - he was a tennis player of Davis Cup standard - listening to good music and "not writing". He returned to live in Australia in 1993.

A biography of Russell Braddon Proud Australian Boy by Nigel Starck was published in 2011.