Mon 27 Sep 2021
Reviewed by Maryell Cleary: LESLIE CHARTERIS – The White Rider.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[12] Comments
LESLIE CHARTERIS – The White Rider. Bill Kennedy #2. Ward Lock, UK. hardcover, 1928. Doubleday Doran, US, hardcover, 1930. No paperback editions known.
Leslie Charteris broke into print in 1927, .with the publication of a non-Saint book, X Esquire [the first Bill Kennedy novel]. QUIRE. The following year saw two more books published; one was the first “Saint,” Meet the Tiger, the other a non-Saint novel, The White Rider.
Today this book is a collector’s item as an associational piece, rather than a book many would enjoy reading. There are some Saint-like qualities in the story: a young lady in distress, some young men who are either doing amateur detection or who are in league to steal a large sum of money, a masked rider, an upper-class British atmosphere with an American or two thrown in.
The story goes on, and on, and on. Length is a major defect. Not yet has Charteris learned to write concise short stories. There is a great deal of action, with men falling dead hither and yon, sometimes by quite normal knifing and shooting, sometimes by exotic and not very believable means. It’s as if Charteris had been trying to put everything into one novel.
Briefly the plot is this: Seldon, a bank robber, dies without divulging the hiding-place of his loot; apparently it is somewhere about the house at Sancreed where his wife (who is not seen) and his daughter (a major character) live. A masked “White Rider” has been seen by people living in the vicinity, riding at night and acting mysteriously. Assistant Commissioner Bill Kennedy and Jimmy Haddon, an American policeman, go down, to Sancreed to head off criminals also anxious to get their hands on the. loot.
Eventually the money is saved, young love has its way, and the head criminal is captured, though only after many thoroughly confusing events and murders. This may be what used to be called “a rattlin’ good yarn.” I consider it interesting historically, but little in any other way.
September 28th, 2021 at 7:33 am
This makes me wonder how well the Saint books hold up these days. Anyone tried one lately?
September 28th, 2021 at 9:42 am
I recently re-read “The Saint on the Spanish Main,” a collection of Saint stories from the mid-50s taking place in the Caribbean. It includes “The Arrow of God,” one of his better known stories. The stories were OK, but not as good as I remembered them. I thought it was me, but I was disappointed.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:07 pm
Personal preference, the earlier novels work better, especially The Saint in New York and Enter The saint. Patricia Holm or even a reference to her is sorely missed in Charteris’s later work. Norman Kent too. It is not the cleverness that attracts, but the romantic nature of these.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:38 pm
You are quite right, Barry, especially about Patricia Holm disappearing in and out of the Saint’s adventures before finally vanishing for good. I suppose Charteris thought Simon needed other women to flirt with, but without Patricia Holm at his side, things were never the same.
Others may feel the same. Would you believe that she has her own Wikipedia page?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Holm
I’ll quote the first two paragraphs:
“Patricia Holm is the name of a fictional character who appeared in the novels and short stories of Leslie Charteris between 1928 and 1948. She was the on-again, off-again girlfriend and partner of Simon Templar, alias “The Saint”, and shared a number of his adventures. In addition, by the mid-1930s, Holm and Templar shared the same flat in London, although they were unmarried. Although such co-habitation between unmarried partners is commonplace today, it was rare, shocking (and in some areas, even illegal) in the 1930s. The two also appeared to have a somewhat “open” relationship, with Holm accepting (or, at least, tolerating) Templar’s occasional dalliances with other women.
“Charteris wrote Holm out of the series after 1948. A fleeting reference in the final novel credited to Charteris (1983’s Salvage for the Saint) reveals that at some point in the past, Holm had left Templar.”
September 28th, 2021 at 1:26 pm
The only one I’ve reread in recent years is THE SAINT IN MIAMI, which, not so coincidentally, was also the very first one I read, lo those many years ago. I say that it wasn’t a coincidence because I reread it so that I could write an introduction for the most recent reprint of the novel. Long story short, I thought it held up great and thoroughly enjoyed it. I keep meaning to reread the series in order up to that point but can’t seem to get around to it.
September 28th, 2021 at 1:36 pm
I’m ready to start over again myself, starting with the very first one. (Some of the later ones, written by others, I’ve never gotten to.)
September 28th, 2021 at 7:33 pm
I listened to the trilogy on audiobooks recently. It worked very well in that format even though it took six hours longer than just reading them.
This one would have benefited if the hero had been driving a white car instead of riding a white horse. As is it is too much poorly distilled Edgar Wallace and not enough Sapper (Charteris other big influence aside from Anthony Hope and Sexton Blake).
I found it the weakest of the non Saint novels, and sadly the easiest to find.
Still many of Charteris novels and stories still work for me. I love “The Conveinent Monster”, “The Million Pound Kiss,” and “Palm Springs Story,” and many others across the spectrum of years. Do they all hold up? No, but then neither do all the Sherlock Holmes stories if we are honest.
September 30th, 2021 at 2:19 pm
For me, the biggest obstacle to reading Charteris is his verbose prose. He would never use five words when twenty would do.
I own most of the books, though, and must get back to them at some point soon.
September 30th, 2021 at 6:42 pm
Verbose? I think I’d have to agree. Loved it when I was fifteen. I really really wanted to be able to write like that.
October 1st, 2021 at 8:08 am
Yes, I’d still like to write like him to an extent, though with much more restraint.
When it comes to suspense, being long-winded can be good or bad: complex sentences and interminable passages can build tension, but it also makes the action depicted seem very slow indeed. That’s a problem if you’re trying to tell a fast-paced story.
It’s about, I think, finding the balance between vividness and verbosity. And knowing when to stop and jabber and when to crack on with the plot.
October 1st, 2021 at 5:38 pm
Interminable is a word that does not read as a recommendation, not here or anywhere I can think of.
October 2nd, 2021 at 11:07 am
I didn’t mean it as a recommendation necessarily. Some of the passages in these books can seem interminable.