''The High Commissioner'' was a 1966 novel by Australian author

Jon Cleary Jon Stephen Cleary (22 November 191719 July 2010) was an Australian writer and novelist. He wrote numerous books, including '' The Sundowners'' (1951), a portrait of a rural family in the 1920s as they move from one job to the next, and '' The ...

which introduced the detective hero

Scobie Malone Scobie Malone is a fictional Sydney homicide detective created by Australian novelist Jon Cleary. History Named after the jockey Scobie Breasley, Malone made his first appearance in Cleary's 1966 novel '' The High Commissioner''. Cleary says h ...

Plot

Sergeant Scobie Malone of the Sydney police is sent by the

New South Wales Premier The premier of New South Wales is the head of government in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Government of New South Wales follows the Westminster Parliamentary System, with a Parliament of New South Wales acting as the legislature. ...

, Flannery, to London where he is to arrest the Australian High Commissioner James Quentin for the murder of his first wife. He arrives to discover someone is trying to assassinate the High Commissioner for his work at a

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

peace conference. Quentin asks for five days grace so he can complete his work at the conference, and Malone gets permission to agree to this, on the proviso he keep a close eye on Quentin. He pretends to be a member of Quentin's security detail and none of Quentin's household know the truth: not his wife Sheila, secretary Lisa, or butler Josef. However, Sheila soon deduces Malone's real agenda. The person behind the assassination attempt is Madame Cholon, a Vietnamese crime figure, who has hired three men, Truong Tho, Pallain and Pham Chinh, to kill Quentin. She is being followed by Jamaica, a black CIA agent, who warns Malone away from her. Two detectives from Special Branch, Denzil and Coburn, are called in to investigate after an initial assassination attempt on Quentin. Later Truong goes to

Australia House The High Commission of Australia in London is the diplomatic mission of Australia in the United Kingdom. It is located in Australia House, a Grade II listed building. It was Australia's first diplomatic mission and is the longest continuously ...

to deposit a bomb but is spotted by Malone. In the ensuring chase Truong is hit by a car and blows up. Malone later visits a gambling den with Lisa, trying to find Madame Cholon. While outside Pham Chin tries to run him over but does not succeed. Malone begins to develop romantic feelings towards Lisa, and starts suspecting that Quentin may be innocent. Madame Cholon is visited by two Chinese agents who tell her to stop the attempts on Quentin's life, or else. Cholon thinks that Jamaica was responsible for informing on her and orders his assassination. Before he dies he reveals to Cholon that Josef the butler is a double agent also working for the Russians and the Chinese. Cholon blackmails him into killing Quentin with an explosive alarm clock. Malone eventually discovers that Quentin's first wife was actually killed by Sheila. Josef has a change of heart and tells Sheila about Madame Cholon's plan. She takes the clock to see Cholon and detonates it, killing both of them. The charges against Quentin are dropped and he decides to go to Malaysia to be a surveyor under the

Colombo Plan The Colombo Plan is a regional intergovernmental organization that began operations on 1 July 1951. The organization was conceived at an international conference, The Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri L ...

. Malone returns to Australia, intending to ask Lisa to marry him.

Background

Cleary says he got the idea for the novel from meeting an Australian policeman he knew walking out of

in London one day. He was on six months leave but Cleary wondered what if he had come to arrest the Australian High Commissioner for murder. He wrote it in London over three months.

Opening

The first sentence of the books was: ''The Premier said, "We want you to go to London and arrest the High Commissioner for murder."'' This opening garnered much critical praise and a striking first sentence would become a feature of the later books in the series.Jon Cleary Interviewed by Stephen Vagg: Oral History
at National Film and Sound Archive

Reception

The novel was a best seller and turned into a 1968 film, ''

Nobody Runs Forever ''Nobody Runs Forever'', also called ''The High Commissioner'', is a 1968 British political neo noir spy thriller action film directed by Ralph Thomas and based on Jon Cleary's 1966 novel '' The High Commissioner''. It stars Rod Taylor as Aus ...

'', starring Rod Taylor as Malone. It led to a sequel, '' Helga's Web'', and a whole series of Scobie Malone novels.

References

External links

*The novel was serialised in ''

The Australian Women's Weekly ''The Australian Women's Weekly'', sometimes known as simply ''The Weekly'', is an Australian monthly women's magazine published by Mercury Capital in Sydney. For many years it was the number one magazine in Australia before being outsold by ...

'' in 1967 �
Part 1Part 2Part 3''The High Commissioner''
at AustLit (subscription required) {{DEFAULTSORT:High Commissioner 1966 Australian novels Novels set in London William Collins, Sons books William Morrow and Company books Novels by Jon Cleary