Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial (Definitely)

You know, when I first started writing about a series of comedy detective novels originally published in the late 80s and early 90s, and the obscure television series they spawned, I didn't really expect them to end up becoming such a big part of the blog. But they have, as the story behind them has grown progressively more and more complicated and the number of mysteries they've thrown up has increased. So before we dive into the latest of those, perhaps a recap of the story so far would be useful.

I first inquired about the 1991 TV series The Diamond Brothers: South by South East in December 2017. At that time, I believed the TV series was an adaptation of the third book, and there was one big mystery, and one little one:

• The TV series was extremely obscure, to the point that not so much as a single still image from it could be found on the internet.
• The book was published on 14 March 1991, and the TV series began broadcasting just twelve days later, on the 26th.

Over the next few years, the response I got was more than I could possibly have hoped for. Steve Williams submitted Radio Times listings that provided the first photographic evidence of the series' existence. I was sent an extensive second-hand account of the original broadcast. My own research turned up a promotional poster. It turned out the series might have been released on VHS in Spain. Someone who was an extra on the production for one day even got in touch. Finally, in May 2021, footage of the series actually emerged on YouTube in the form of the original opening titles. Bearing in mind that back in 2017, I semi-seriously floated the theory that the series might actually have been some sort of elaborate hoax, I was pretty happy with all that had come to light -- short of the actual full episodes turning up, I'd done about as well as I could.

But then, only a few weeks later, I was sent something that cast a new light on the second mystery (the TV series' extremely close proximity to the release of the original book). Christian-Bernard Gauci informed me he owned an edition of the book from 1991 which he, and I, quite reasonably assumed was a TV tie-in edition:

But as I thought about this, something seemed off. If there was a TV tie-in edition, surely it would've had to have been published more or less at exactly the same time as the original book? Wouldn't it have been a bit odd to have the book published with two different covers at the same time? And then a staggering possibility hit me: This wasn't a TV tie-in edition of the book. It was the only edition of the book published in 1991. Because, contrary to what everywhere (including the first page of later editions of the books) that mentions it says, the TV series wasn't actually an adaptation of the book, but the book was a novelisation of the TV series.

Christian-Bernard thought to actually ask Anthony Horowitz about this on Twitter, and he replied that he wrote the series first, then the book. My mind was, by this stage, well and truly blown.

And this wasn't all. Because Christian-Bernard provided a photo of the first page of the book, and there were clear differences in the text between his copy and my printing, which was a Walker Books one from 2002:

With the newfound revelation that the series actually came first, an obvious explanation presented itself. Walker Books became Horowitz's publisher in the mid-to-late-nineties; when they reprinted the novelisation of South by South East, some revisions were made to bring it in line with the first two Diamond Brothers books.

If this is giving you a headache, then perhaps a timeline of events might prove helpful.

• 1986: The first Diamond Brothers book, The Falcon's Malteser, is published by Grafton Books.
• 1987: The second Diamond Brothers book, Public Enemy Number Two, is published by Grafton Books.
• 1988: The Falcon's Malteser is adapted as a movie, Just Ask for Diamond, with Horowitz writing the screenplay himself.
• Some point in 1990, presumably: Horowitz writes the screenplay for South by South East, a TV series which serves as a follow-up to the movie Just Ask for Diamond.
• Some point in 1990 after that: Horowitz writes a novel based on his screenplay for South by South East.
• 1991: The book based on South by South East is published by Lion Books just twelve days before the one and only transmission of the TV series starts on ITV.
• 1995-97: Walker Books republish many of Horowitz's older books, including the novelisation of South by South East, which has some changes made to the text to bring it in line with the other two Diamond Brothers books.

I wanted to know just how different the two versions of the book were, and it hardly seemed fair on Christian-Bernard to ask him to scan every single page of his copy in. I took the more sensible option: get hold of a 1991 copy myself.

The changes, however, really weren't what I expected. Many of them appear to be down to dissatisfaction with the original version; the 1997 revisions frequently remove dated references, or tighten the pace up by cutting out extraneous details, and I'm not going to cover every single one of them here when there's dozens of them. (When Walker Books republished The Falcon's Malteser and Public Enemy Number Two, they also updated the text for similar reasons.) However, there are a few changes which I believe relate to material that was originally in the TV serial, faithfully adapted for the novelisation, but then cut out when Horowitz did his rewrite a few years later. So let's focus on those.

Chapter 1: McGuffin

As noted in the pictures above, the revisions start with a big one, that comes on the very first page. The 1991 original is on the left, and the 1997 revision on the right:

What can I tell you about Camden Town? It's a place in North London with a market and a canal. What you can't find in the market you'll find floating in the canal - only cheaper. Camden Town is also the home of Tim Diamond Inc., Private Detective. You'll see the words painted in black ink on the front window and if you can read them it must have just rained because that's the only time the window is ever clean enough. Tim Diamond Inc. ... They were the last words Jake McGuffin ever read. But then when you're being chased by two Dutch assassins with a knife and a gun and your name on both of them, you don't have time to start a paperback book. It was the long hot summer of 1990. Although I didn't know it then, it was going to be longer and hotter for me than for anyone else. I remember the day because it was my turn to make lunch and that was when I discovered that there was no lunch left to be made.

What can I tell you about Camden Town? It's a place in north London with a market and a canal. What you can't find in the market you'll find floating in the canal - only cheaper. And that's why we'd moved to Camden Town. Because it was cheap. Our new offices were small and sleazy but that was OK because so were most of our clients. We hadn't taken much with us. Just some old furniture and some bad memories. And the door. It was cheaper to bring the door with us than get another one painted. TIM DIAMOND INC. PRIVATE DETECTIVE That's what it said on the glass. They were the last words Jake McGuffin ever read. But when you're being chased by two Dutch killers with a knife and a gun and your name on both of them, you don't have time to start a paperback book. It was a long, hot summer. Although I didn't know it then, it was going to be longer and hotter for me than for anyone else. The day it all started, it was my turn to make lunch - but I'd just discovered there was no lunch left to make.

This seems to be largely an exercise in bringing the novelisation in line with the first two books in the series, establishing the Brothers have moved to Camden Town in the later version, and removing a reference pinning the action down to 1990. Horowitz may have taken issue with the original construction of the sentence about making lunch, but your guess is as good as mine as to why the 1997 version changes "assassins" to "killers".

I said I wasn't going to mention every single deletion or little edit, but here's one as an example (text in red is missing in the 1997 version), from the end of the chapter when McGuffin swaps coats with Tim:

Finally he turned round. He gazed at Tim. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Tim was leaning over his desk with his eyes hidden behind his hands. "You said you wanted to get out of here without being seen!" he explained.

McGuffin shook his head. He'd produced fifty pounds out of nowhere and he threw them down on the desk, five £10 notes which were the best thing I'd seen all day.

I don't know whether or not this joke was in the TV serial -- it seems a bit too stupid for the film version of Tim (which the series was a follow-up to), and is more in keeping with the Flanderized version of him in the later books, so possibly not. I give it as an example because I think it's quite funny, but also because it creates a non sequitur in the 1997 edition -- after McGuffin leaves, there's a line about Tim opening his eyes still in it despite the reason for him closing his eyes being cut.

Chapter 2: South by South East

After a recap of how Nick abandoned his parents at Heathrow whilst they were emigrating to Australia:

As the plane soared away into the setting sun there was a big lump in my throat and I realized I'd laughed so much I'd swallowed my chewing gum. I only had two addresses in my address book, and one of them belonged to the manufacturer. I took a tube into town, heading for the other. My big brother, Herbert. It took me an hour to get him to let me in, about a week to persuade him to let me stay and about eighteen months to show him he wasn't making a mistake. In that time I solved two cases for him. You ever read about the Falcon's Malteser or the search for Public Enemy Number Two? Well, they were Tim's two biggest successes - only he forgot to mention that without his little brother he'd still be whistling in the wind. In fact Tim can't even whistle. When he's in a good mood he hums through his nose. He wasn't humming as we left the office that morning in search of McGuffin, though. He was nervous. I suppose I couldn't blame him. Maybe McGuffin had been imagining things - half the stuff he'd told us. But it hadn't been his imagination that had shot that hole through our office window. "Are you sure about this?" Tim asked. I jiggled the key in my hand. "We're just going to give it back," I said. We'd moved office a couple of months before. The rent had been rising so fast it had overtaken the damp. That was how we had arrived in Camden Town. We had four rooms, not counting the bathroom, which was just as well, as the architect hadn't counted it either. In fact the whole place was so leaky that when it rained you could shower without getting out of bed. The nearest telephone box was just a few minutes' walk away - down the High Street and into a blind alley called Skin Lane. Whoever built it must have been blind too, because the alley didn't go anywhere. It ran for about twenty yards down to a bare brick wall. And that was it. The only thing in Skin Lane was the red telephone box at the far end, underneath a railway bridge. And that wasn't much use either because a train ran past every six minutes, so if you were planning to have a long conversation, you were going to have to shout. As we approached the alley, a street cleaner limped round the corner, stabbing at the pavement with a broken, worn-out brush.

As the plane soared away into the setting sun there was a big lump in my throat and I realized I'd laughed so much I'd swallowed my chewing gum. Ever since then I'd been living with Tim. Twice I'd almost been killed with him. I should have remembered that as we set off together in search of McGuffin. Perhaps this was going to be third time unlucky. "Are you sure about this?" Tim asked. I jiggled the key in my hand. "We're just going to give it back," I said. As we approached Skin Lane, a street cleaner limped round the corner, stabbing at the pavement with a broken, worn-out brush.

So the original version does, in fact, also clarify that the Diamond Brothers have recently moved to Camden Town -- this does, however, still seem to me like it was done to bring the novelisation into line with the books' continuity. Note that the book The Falcon's Malteser was set in Fulham, but the movie adaptation moved the action to Camden Town for whatever reason. So the TV series must have always been set in Camden, since it was a follow-up to the movie, and the explanation for them moving to Camden must only have ever been in the books. The 1997 version, trying more to fit with the first two books, just places greater significance on it.

Chapter 3: Room Service

In the meantime I'd crossed over to the low table that ran underneath a mirror along the far wall. There were only two things on it. The first was a newspaper. It was open on page five and somebody - McGuffin maybe - had circled one of the photographs in blue ink. The photograph showed a middle-aged man with a cheap smile and an expensive suit. he had one of those moustaches that people you can't trust always have. The caption said his name was Ernest Lemon. He was a property developer. The other item on the table was a ticket. It didn't tell me very much either. It was a white ticket, seat number 86, to something called the Amstel Ijsbaan. Whatever the something was, it had to be foreign. The only word in the English language that I know with a double a in it is Aaaagh. The ticket had a little illustration in one corner: a pair of skating boots. "Come and look at this!" I called Tim over and handed him the ticket. He examined it. "Do you think he was an ice-skater?" he asked. "McGuffin?" I shook my head. "He didn't look like one." "You're right," Tim agreed. "He wasn't wearing sequins."

In the meantime I'd crossed over to the low table that ran underneath a mirror along the far wall - and that was where I found it. It was a ticket: seat number 86 to something called the Amstel Ijsbaan. Whatever the something was, it had to be foreign. The only word in the English language that I know with a double a in it is "Aagh". "Come and look at this!" I called Tim over and handed him the ticket. He examined it. "Do you think he was an ice-skater?" he asked. "McGuffin?" I shook my head. "He didn't look like one." "You're right," Tim agreed. "He wasn't wearing shiny tights."

Ernest Lemon is cut out of the 1997 version entirely -- make a note of his name, as we'll hear more from him later. The other two, minor changes to this section are presumably just felt to be funnier.

We went all the way to the fifth floor and then the door opened again and there were Ed and Ted waiting for us, smiling cold little smiles with lips that must have taken the day off. They'd run down a flight of stairs to head us off and now they simply stepped into the lift. As the door began to close behind them I wondered how many bullets they'd put in us before we reached the ground. Of course, Tim and I wouldn't be stopping at the ground. It looked like we were continuing six feet underneath it. But at the last minute, an umbrella poked itself through the gap in the door. The door slid open automatically and a lady in a fur coat got in. Ted and Ed scowled. It was another witness - just what they didn't need. The lift went down another floor. It stopped again. Tim tapped the lady on a fur-covered shoulder. "You're not getting out here, are you?" he asked. She looked at him as if he was crazy. Myself, I'm not so crazy about fur coats but I was praying she'd stay. She might not have done much for the thirty-odd minks on her back but right now she was saving our skins. With her in the lift there was nothing Ed or Ted could do. She didn't get out. Two Japanese men and a nun got in. They stood between the sunglass twins and us. The door shut again. "It's getting crowded in here," Tim muttered to me. "Not crowded enough," I replied. Tim nodded. "There's still three more floors." It was a busy hotel. By the time the lift reached the reception area, we had been joined by a musician, two American tourists, a rabbi, five airline stewards, a nanny with a screaming baby and an entire German family in short trousers with feathers in their hats. We didn't walk out of the lift. We poured out. And the best thing was we left Ed and Ted struggling in the crowd behind us. We ran across the reception area, dodging suitcases and slipping on the marble. As the double doors leading out loomed up on this, I risked one quick look back. Ed and Ted seemed to have given up the chase. Ted had taken out his radio transmitter again and was talking into it. Somewhere in my mind I knew this was bad news. But I didn't have time to work out why. We shot through the doors and into the forecourt. There were people everywhere, milling round aimlessly in the morning sun. From out of nowhere a black taxi lumbered towards us. I put out a hand. It stopped. "Where are we going?" Tim asked. "Anywhere," I replied. I threw open the door and got in. "Camden Town," Tim said to the driver. I twisted round on my seat and searched through the crowd. And there they were, Ed and Ted. They were standing by the door. They'd seen us get into the cab. But they weren't trying to stop us. There was a nasty feeling in my stomach, and somehow I knew it wasn't car sickness. The driver took a left turn, then a right. Which was funny, because if I'd been driving to Camden Town, I'd have taken a right turn, then a left.

The lift carried us all the way down to the ground floor and the moment the doors opened we were out. We crossed the lobby and went through the revolving doors. No sooner were we in the sunlight than a taxi drew up in front of us. Even then I thought it was a little odd. There was a taxi rank to one side with several cabs waiting. But this one had come from nowhere, jumping the queue. "Where to?" the driver asked. I threw open the door and got in. "Camden Town," Tim said. I looked through the back window. There was no sign of Ed or Ted. But as we set off, there was a nasty feeling in my stomach and I knew it wasn't car sickness. The driver took a left turn, then a right. Which was funny, because if I'd been going to Camden Town, I'd have taken a right turn, then a left.

Notes: Again, I'd really need to see the TV series and find out if the original version of this sequence is used there to make an educated guess about this change (we know from the opening titles on YouTube that this is the end of the first episode). I would not be at all surprised to find out that this was originally in there.

Chapter 4: Number Seventeen

There's a deletion in this chapter I want to highlight (cut text in red):

"Miss Jones," he said. "Could you get a drink for our guests?" Then he turned back and consulted the computer screen one last time. "I'm just checking your file," he explained.

"Checking it for what, Mr Lazerly?" Tim asked.

"Well..." Waverly smiled again. "I didn't realize I was sitting opposite London's most successful private eye."

"Are you sure you've got the right file?" I said.

Tim looked daggers at me but said nothing.

"I have a proposition for you," Waverly went on.

As with some of the other cuts, it seems possible this dialogue was in the TV series, was faithfully novelised, but then Horowitz decided it didn't fit when he did his revision.

Chapter 5: Birds

In 1991, this chapter opens with Nick regaining consciousness back in the Camden Town office; the 1997 version is rewritten so he and Tim are already awake and fully recovered, midway through a conversation that doesn't even start until two pages into the original chapter, losing Nick's slow return to consciousness in the process.

Chapter 7: Lifeboat

If you have been reading along with a version of the book published after 1997, you may have noticed that there is no such chapter. Because the entire next chapter and a half, more or less, is only in the 1991 version, and that is followed by another chapter and a half that is more or less totally rewritten in the 1997 version. Perhaps the simplest way to tackle this is to provide first a plot summary of the original, and then the revision.

1991 version: Tim and Nick are now wanted criminals after being framed for bank robbery by the international assassin known only as Charon, and make their way across London. They find a decrepit guest-house and spend the night there. Nick sees in the newspaper that Ernest Lemon, the property developer McGuffin had made a note of, has bought the Albert Hall and they decide to go see him the next day. At the same moment they meet him, Lemon is assassinated by Charon, who is disguised as a charity collector, and in the confusion Tim is mistaken for the killer. Tim and Nick return to the guest-house and, remembering the ice-skating ticket they found in McGuffin's hotel room, decide to go to Amsterdam next. Nick then senses something is wrong and, overhearing the other residents of the guest house downstairs, realise they know Tim is a wanted criminal. Before they make it out, the other residents ambush them in the stairwell and handcuff them together, but they escape and make their way to Victoria train station. Tim accidentally asks a police officer for directions to the ticket office. On the train, Tim and Nick meet a young Dutch crime writer called Charlotte who recognises them, but believes in Tim's innocence. Nick waits outside their compartment whilst Tim and Charlotte talk, but Chief Inspector Snape and Boyle turn up. The train goes into a tunnel before they can get into the compartment and, when they get out, Nick discovers he's no longer handcuffed to Tim, but to Charlotte, who claims to be working for social services and is taking Nick into care. She eventually manages to get Snape and Boyle to believe this story, and they leave at the next stop. Charlotte points out that the handcuffs are trick ones which open at the touch of a hidden button. Tim (who was hiding in the compartment) throws the handcuffs out of the window and they land directly in front of Snape and Boyle, who realise they've been tricked. With Charlotte's help, Tim and Nick jump off the moving train and make the rest of the journey to Dover on foot, where they get a ferry to Amsterdam.

1997 version: Tim and Nick are now wanted criminals and make their way across London. They find a decrepit guest-house and intend to spend the night there. Remembering the ice-skating ticket they found in McGuffin's hotel room, they decide to go to Amsterdam next, but before they can go to bed they are ambushed in their room by the other residents of the guest house, who handcuff them together, but they escape and make their way to Victoria train station. Tim accidentally asks a police officer for directions to the ticket office. On the train, Tim and Nick meet a young Dutch crime writer called Charlotte who recognises them, but believes in Tim's innocence. The train suddenly stops between stations and five policemen get on. With Charlotte's help, Tim and Nick jump off the moving train (breaking the handcuffs in the process) and make the rest of the journey to Dover on foot, where they get a ferry to Amsterdam.

The affected chapters are numbered as follows in 1991:

7. Lifeboat

8. Chain Reaction

9. One-Way Tickets

But as follows in 1997:

7. Chain Reaction - mostly a heavily rewritten version of the original chapter, with a small bit that was originally in "Lifeboat" at the start

8. Train Reaction - heavily rewritten version of "One-Way Tickets"

Apart from removing the character of Ernest Lemon entirely, the most notable thing this revision does is cut Snape and Boyle out from the Brothers' escape from the train. The original version of the train scene has a very odd feel, and I would be fairly confident in saying that it was originally in the TV series, included in the novelisation but then changed when Horowitz did his rewrite. Note that episode 3 of the series was titled "Strangers on a Chain" -- a title that does seem to make rather more sense if the earlier version of the text reflects what happened there.

In fact, I can get even more confident. Remember the title sequence to the series is on YouTube -- the only moving footage of the series available so far.

This is Tim kissing Charlotte, which looks remarkably like a scene that is in the 1991 version of chapter nine-slash-eight, but not the 1997 one. (Tim and Charlotte's relationship is downscaled quite a lot in the rewrite; in the original they have at least one kissing scene and the text expressly refers to her as his girlfriend at one point.) I also can't be certain, but Colin Dale's credit screen is illustrated with a shot that looks very much like he's waiting outside Tim and Charlotte's train compartment whilst handcuffed to Tim:

Snape and Boyle were probably only in the original to keep the characters (played by veteran of stage and screen Michael Feast and former post-punk rocker Gordon Winter) part of the action. (I reckon Lemon was also in the TV series; Tim being wanted for bank robbery and murder does serve to escalate things, but it doesn't change a great deal about the Brothers' situation.) It's the biggest cut of the entire book, reducing what was originally 40 pages to about 20.

Chapter 12: Charon

The scene with Nick getting his bullet wound tended to by a vet after the Brothers' near-assassination in the wheat field is significantly extended in the 1991 version, with some business over him getting an injection that seems like it could have been in the TV series, but it's hard to tell either way.

An interesting chunk is taken out of the description of the Winter House in the 1997 version -- it would be useful to compare it to how it looks in the TV series, were such a thing possible:

The towers had been stolen from a castle, the windows from a church, the grey slate roof from a railway station. Nothing made sense. The front door was at the back. The drainpipes finished without drains. The ivy grew down, not up. And it was all sitting in a huge garden with an ornamental lake that was covered in so much slime that it looked greener - and more solid - than the grass.

The house was set back from the road.

Goofy note: The cheque Nick discovers in Charon's drawer subsequently is for two hundred thousand guilders (about £60,000) in 1991, but four hundred thousand guilders (about £120,000) in 1997. Anyway, here's another deletion that seems like it could have been in the TV series and only cut out when the novelisation was rewritten:

"Let's take the window," Tim said, moving the other way.

"What's wrong with the door?"

"The window's nearer."

"The door's easier."

"The window's safer." Tim leant forward and grabbed hold of it. "And keep it quiet. OK?"

He opened the window. Alarm bells exploded throughout the house.

Chapter 14: The Wrong Man

When Nick is liberated from the magician's box, there's a scene where Tim attempts to demonstrate the knives used in the magic trick are just trick ones and accidentally stabs one of the MI6 agents with one of them that's only in the 1991 version; this seems like something else that could have been in the TV serial originally. (When the action gets back to MI6, a reference to the agent in question having a knife wound is removed as a result of this, as is a section about Lemon given he's not in the '97 cut.)

Chapter 16: Special Delivery

This chapter is largely the same in both versions, but this does give me the opportunity to discuss something we've not yet covered. In the book, the finale is an elaborate sequence with Charon in the Tunnel of Love at Hampstead Heath funfair that culminates in Charon getting electrocuted. Since this is a bit much for CITV, the TV series had a more straightforward sequence with Charon getting arrested by Snape and Boyle in the Diamond Brothers' flat.

Back when I thought the TV series was an adaptation of the book, this seemed to have a simple enough explanation: the originally written sequence from the novel was deemed unfilmable on grounds of budget, violence or both, and was replaced entirely for the TV series. But knowing now that the series actually came first, I have to presume that the truth flips this on its head: Horowitz originally intended the Tunnel of Love sequence for the TV series, it couldn't be done, and when he novelised the serial he reinstated the originally planned climax. (Note that in the TV series, Charon just gets arrested, but in the 1991 version of the book it's ambiguous whether or not they die as a result of the electrocution; the 1997 version adds a line which expressly says they survive.)

* * *

So, we can't really reach any conclusions without having seen the TV episodes. But it is my belief that my original hypothesis was more or less correct: when Walker Books reprinted the SbSE novelisation in 1997, several updates were made to try and bring it in line with the continuity of the other two Diamond Brothers books and to get rid of bits that didn't really work in print, and were only included because Horowitz was trying to stick closer to the TV series he was adapting. At some point I might cover the changes made to the first two books in the nineties, but they seem to all be of the "less dated" and "dissatisfaction with the original version" variety (as well as the odd joke which they might just about have gotten away with in the 80s but definitely wasn't acceptable a few years later), nothing like cutting out entire plot strands as happened here (the 1997 version is a good 40 pages shorter than the original), which makes me think even more strongly that some of the material I've described above is related to the TV series. And the scant visual material we have for the series makes me tempted to say we can, for at least some of the 1991-only text, confirm it.

* * *

Here's something nice to finish up on. The other day, I was emailed by Giles Leigh, who had a lot of information to share on both the Diamond Brothers film and TV series -- in particular, he provided some information about various overseas releases of Just Ask for Diamond that I believe answers a lot of questions about the two different edits that exist of the film, which will be coming to a blog post soon, possibly next week.

But to stick with South by South East for now: remember that promotional poster I unearthed a few years ago? Well, Giles went one better than me and bought a copy of it. And it turns out there's something pretty interesting on the back.

Would you look at that? The identity of the actor who played Hugo Rushmore (who appears to be a pretty famous Dutch film star)! Marcia Warren was in this as the landlady of the guest house the brothers stay in! A new picture of Dursley McLinden! And the most intriguing line of all: "RUNNING TIME: 6 x 25 MINUTES or 1 x 120 MINUTES". The latter must refer to a compilation movie edit -- was this screened anywhere? Might it be what's on the Spanish VHS release? Does this point to the tantalising possibility of more copies being out there, somewhere?