| The Paladin | |
| Author: | Brian Garfield (in collaboration with Christopher Creighton (pseudonym)) |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Historical novel |
| Published: | 1979 (Simon & Schuster) |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback) |
| Pages: | 381 |
| Isbn: | 9780671247041 |
| Oclc: | 5412654 |
The Paladin is a 1979 historical novel by Brian Garfield. Supposedly based on a true story, it is about a young boy "Christopher Creighton" who befriends Winston Churchill in the mid 1930s and then goes on to take an active role in a number of World War II operations including: informing Churchill in advance of the surrender of Belgium leading to the Dunkirk evacuation, stopping the Americans from being warned of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by sinking a submarine, and misleading the Germans about the Normandy invasion.
A starred review in Kirkus Reviews of The Paladin wrote "Still, veteran Garfield punches it all out with assured panache: larger-than-life Churchill, exploit after exploit, horror upon horror. So, believe it or not, this is a ripping good yarn--with food for all sorts of WW II-history speculation."[1] The International Churchill Society wrote "His novel is splendid entertainment for the highly committed Churchillian, and you should definitely add a copy to your library of tall tales."[2]
The Washington Post, in its review, disproved a major part of the book posited as true, the sinking of a Dutch submarine which had seen the Japanese fleet approaching Pearl Harbor, and concluded "The writing moves along at a lively pace, but the characters are so wooden a Gepetto would drool. In sum, it's no Le Carre. Still, it's a substantial cut above, say, Robert Ludlum, whose own novels are equally improbable, but more clearly designated as pure fiction."[3]
Nigel West, in his book Counterfeit Spies, exposed the story as fiction.[4]
Library holdings of The Paladin