Sun 15 Oct 2017
Mystery Review: LESLIE CHARTERIS – The Saint on the Spanish Main.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[10] Comments
LESLIE CHARTERIS – The Saint on the Spanish Main. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1955. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1956. US paperback reprints include: Avon #771, 1955; Macfadden, 1966; Charter, February 1981.
A collection of five novellas and novelettes, that find Simon Templar island hopping across the Caribbean — no surprise there, given the title. As an adventurous rogue working alone, The Saint is in good form, but not great. I find these shorter stories taking place later in The Saint’s career less interesting than the novel-length format at the beginning.
The shorter form cramps his style, to my way of thinking, nor does he have villains worthy of his undeniable talent to bring the ungodly down. His travels take him from Bimini (“The Effete Angler”), Nassau (“The Arrow of God”), Jamaica (“The Black Commissar”), Puerto Rico (“The Unkind Philanthropist”), The Virgin Islands (“The Old Treasure Story”) and Haiti (“The Questing Tycoon”).
You learn early on, in “Angler,” to be suspicious of everyone, but yet in “Philanthropist,” one more twist would have made the story even more delicious (if I understood the ending correctly). One of the stories, “The Arrow of God,” is of the detective variety, but it depends solely on reading one certain word and using it to identify the killer out of a group of possible suspects, all of whom have a motive.
But even if not the best of The Saint, Leslie Charteris always had a magical way with words, and reading these stories, some for the second time, somehow had a way of taking me back to the days of my youth, when I was much younger.
October 15th, 2017 at 11:39 pm
I agree that I prefer the early Saint to the later Saint, but I read most of these when they were appearing in The Saint Magazine and at the time thought they were sophisticated (whatever that means). At one time I had a complete set of the books. There’s a library near me that has most of them and I have audio books of a number of the early titles. I’ll have to listen to some of those one of these days.
October 16th, 2017 at 12:16 am
Not only do I prefer the older Saint novels, but the earliest ones in which Patricia Holm is front and center with Norman Kent and Monty Hayward. Those were the days. Reminiscent, or at least seemingly inspired by, The Four Just Men.
October 16th, 2017 at 12:19 am
“Arrow of God” is an early story chosen by EQ for the Saint’s entry in 101 YEARS OF ENTERTAINMENT.
October 16th, 2017 at 11:35 am
I’m fairly sure I read Arrow of God for the first time in an EQ anthology, but it wasn’t in 101 YEARS. The Saint entry in that book was “Paris Adventure” (which one source says was also published as “Judith”). I don’t recognize it under either title.
According to Hubin, “Arrow” first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, September 1949. This matches everything else I have found out about it.
Here’s a link to the contents of 101 YEAR’S ENTERTAINMENT. What a wonderful anthology that was when I read it as a teenager for the first time — and still is!
http://www.iblist.com/book64069.htm
October 16th, 2017 at 1:34 pm
“Arrow of God” has been anthologized frequently. My copy of 101 Years’ Entertainment contains “Paris Adventure” at the time a very recent publication.
I discovered 101 YEARS’ ENTERTAINMENT in the high school library when I was a junior. I bought my own copy when on a road trip with a high school class and we stopped at a department store. I went to the book department and saw the book. I immediately bought it and years later had Fred Dannay sign it.
October 16th, 2017 at 2:27 pm
I think “The Arrow of God” may be in another of the many fine Ellery Queen anthologies, perhaps ROGUES’ GALLERY. Obviously, some research is necessary.
October 16th, 2017 at 4:30 pm
The Saint story in ROGUES’ GALLERY is “The Blind Spot.†The book came out in 1945. If the date 1949 is correct for Arrow, the anthology it was in would have been after that.
I think there’s an online index of Crime Fiction collections and anthologies, but I’ve lost the bookmark for it.
October 16th, 2017 at 4:42 pm
This may be it. “The Arrow of God” can be found in My Best Murder Story, edited by David Cooke (1955). I don’t remember it, but this sounds like a book I would have read, if the local library had it.
October 16th, 2017 at 4:28 pm
Here is one list of Saint collections but I don’t think it included EQ anthologies.
http://www.saint.org/books.htm#Collections
October 16th, 2017 at 10:02 pm
I used to run across “The Arrow of God” in a number of anthologies. I’m glad we’ve settled where it fits in the Immortal Works (as Charteris once called the stories)