She also greatly influenced Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions, including the original idea for Smith. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who became his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932–1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He wrote more than thirty books and scripted Shakespeare: The Animated Tales for television. He is best known for children's historical novels, though he also wrote for adults. Leon Garfield FRSL (14 July 1921 – 2 June 1996) was a British writer of fiction. Richly imagined and audacious in its balance of humour and suspense, the book is as absorbing as it is compelling.Children's historical novels, literary adaptation of classical myth and legend

The plot is as convoluted as William’s search packed with unexpected turns, vain hopes of treasure, false clues, and masked identities… The Horn Book wrote: Narrated with the verve and pace of a picaresque novel, John Diamond combines a cast of remarkable eccentrics with superb sensory descriptions…Ī series of heart stopping pursuits through the twisting London streets, narrow escapes, encounters with the denizens of Whitefriars, Foxes Court, and Hanging Court Alley move the story at a precipitous rate toward a thoroughly satisfying and surprising resolution.

First published in 1980, John Diamond won the Whitbread Award that year, as the best children’s story book, and also the prestigious Boston Globe Horn Honor Book Award.

‘Really,’ said Leon Garfield, ‘what I try to write is that old fashioned thing the family novel, accessible to the twelve year old and readable by his elders.’ This classic tale of a boy who sets out to right the wrongs committed by his swindler father demonstrates how extraordinarily successful Leon Garfield was as a story teller. If you should see a boy raise his fists as if to bang on your door and then stumble away, it is not because he’s a dirty little ruffian, but because he’s just caught sight of somebody coming round a corner with a terrible hook. If ever I learned anything during that night, it was that, if you should hear the noise of running feet, you should not be angry, but think that somebody down below might be gasping and groaning and struggling to save his life.

Mr Corbett's Ghost by Leon Garfield