Five "tie-in" publications, four novelisations and a Christmas Annual, were published in 1978 before any of the programmes had aired.
The series was shot during 1977 and completed in early 1978. However, in part due to the World Cup, a place for it in the ITV network schedules wasn't found until January 1979.
The four separate "adventures" were all untitled in the series. The novelisations of the stories were named in order: "The Great Tobacco Conspiracy", "The Mystery of the Missing Formula", "The Case of the Vanishing House" and "The Gold Bullion Swindle".