REMEMBER the name, Harold Davidson. It might not exude the fearsome romantic tempests of a Heathcliff or the age-defining hedonism of a Gatsby, but the pedestrianly-monikered Harold Davidson is about to stride into the annals of unforgettable fictional characters.

That he has none of the usual credentials of a leading man adds to the appeal. Low-sized, swaddled in a large coat fitted with copious pockets, ostensibly pious and distinguished by the irksome habit of sidling up to young females in a show of saccharin paternalism, he is the prototype lecher of mother's warnings. Or is he? Is he, in fact, an instinctive do-gooder and saviour of the fallen? There lies the nub of the novel.

Have we mentioned that old Harold is, by the way, the Rector of Stiffkey? London Independent columnist John Walsh has based his novel on the real-life story of a former such rector, credited as the English media's first celebrity. Davidson dutifully abandons his Irish wife, children and a menagerie of tenants to save the souls of loose women in London. It is between world wars, and while his quintessential English rectory is crumbling under the bailiff 's siege, that Harold occupies himself with the task of taking pretty young things out for lamb chop dinners and theatre revues.

Cadging funds from dowagers in their fusty drawing-rooms, he scours the teeming streets of London for the fallen, driven by a complex that is part Messiah, part-perv. There is much touching and feeling, hugging and kissing and even sleeping (only) with his lost souls. When a 16-year-old minx called Barbara Harris drops into his life, the rector's moral certainties take a circuitous, rose-sniffing stroll in the park.

The crisis culminates in an episcopal courtroom, peopled with lie-peddling witnesses, steel-hearted tarts, classic tabloid hacks and portentous lawyers who never stop to examine their own ethics. With 'who-dunnit?' suspense, the drama builds to a pitch approaching agony. Is the rector a naive, well-intentioned social worker or an opportunistic dirty old man? (Note the modern-day parallels of bleeding-heart liberals versus atavistic conservatives. ) Herein, however, lies the single biggest fault of the novel. Being over-long and badly in need of ruthless surgery, the beautifully crafted suspense finally fizzles out to leave only a vague sense of disappointment and a detached admiration for an otherwise skilled writer. Walsh has a vocabulary as expansive as the ocean but he has a tendency to drown in it.

If he could only master brevity, his combination of humour, imagination, learnedness and articulacy would establish his reputation as a fine novelist. In such circumstances, Harold Davidson could lie down beside the likes of Heathcliff and Gatsby forever.