Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure)
The Paladin, by Brian Garfield. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979; London, Macmillan 1980; Book Club Associates 1981, several tarnslations, 350 pages. (Review updated 2019.)
Garfield’s gripping novel: fictional biography?The late, prolific Brian Garfield wrote this book four decades ago, yet I am still asked about it—and whether it could be true.
The story Mr. Garfield tells seems impossible—fantastic. An eleven-year-old boy named Christopher Creighton leaps a garden wall in Kent one day. He finds himself face to face with the Right Honorable Winston Churchill, Member of Parliament. He will later know the great man by the code-name “Tigger.”…