| Title | : | Alias the Saint |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0786700998 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780786700998 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 179 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1931 |
"Story of a Dead Man"
"The Impossible Crime"
"The National Debt"
(Some editions contain "The National Debt" and "The Man Who Could Not Die" from the previous book).
Alias the Saint Reviews
-
The story of a dead man first published in Thriller in 2nd of March 1929 - In which we meet a certain Sebastian Tombe who actual nome du guerre is no surpise for a certain Scotland Yard detective Teal. The story of how A Saint does take punishment for the deeds of the mere mortals done towards a certain young Lady. The Saint does not enjoy the wicked and makes them pay.
The Impossible crime first published as Bumped off in Thriller on the 7th of March 1931, adapted for the TV Saint series starring Roger Moore as the episode The contract a third season episode - This is the story where Simon Templar robs some American Gangster in New York and then takes a swim. Re-acquaints himself with an American detective and makes sure that American gangsters are taken care of while saving the obligatory damsel in distress.
The National DebtFirst published as The secret of Beacon Inn in Thriller on the 6th of April 1929, adapted for the TV Saint series starring Roger Moore as the episode The crime of he century a third season episode -The story where Simon Templar demands a room in an Inn. He is hunting certain criminals who are planning something the Saint is not sure about only that he will find out and then make them pay for their evil deeds.
An early collection in which Claude Eustace Teal his British Policeman opponent does seem to lose quite a few IQ points between stories, a smart Teal is always preferable to the dumbed down version. The Saint in this earlier age is verbally eloquent and manages to drive his opponents to madness with his unending verbal barrages about the most mundane topics as the Bishop says to the actress.
This is by far my favorite era of Saint when he is in his British pre-war period and does what he is best at being an immortal hero. -
As usual, I'll review each tale as I come to it:
The Story of a Dead Man
So here we have a different way to attack a Saint story. Rather than starting with Simon Templar and his musings and watch them develop into the caper itself; in ‘The Story of a Dead Man’ it’s Claud Eustace Teal who kicks us off, picking up a disgruntled con from outside prison. His investigations lead him to a dodgy looking company in which a ‘Sebastian Tombs’ is a prominent employee.
Sebastian Tombs is of course Simon Templar.
Switching perspectives between Teal and Pamela Marlow, a secretary at this company, we have a very different short story: one where the mystery is ‘what on earth is The Saint?’ up to. It’s an interesting idea, and one clearly designed to build a variety of styles into an ongoing series.
It falls to a number of problems though. Firstly, Teal here shows more agency and smarts than he ever did in the two stories in which he appeared in ‘Featuring the Saint’ (he even manages to match Templar in verbal jousting, which is a bit of a surprise). Secondly, the character of Pamela Marlowe is nowhere near developed enough to make her sections of the tale work. Thirdly, we may have more gritty and tense story than is normally the case, but we also lose some of the man about town charm of Templar’s best stories and that’s a shame.
In his introduction Charteris freely admits that this isn’t the best Saint tale.
He’s well and truly right.
The Impossible Crime
This mixture of a locked room mystery with American gangsters on the rampage just ends up being far too messy as a short story. The intricacies of one half of the mystery are too delicate to stand side by side with the machine gun fire of Chicago émigrés. Actually I’m not a massive fan of the whole ‘American Gangsters in London’ scenario in general. The mews of Berkley Square do not lend themselves to strong arm tactics by bootleggers, and in such a violent story Templar seems to lose some of his debonair man about town style, and I like his debonair man about town style.
Clearly working as a sequel to an earlier American set story, Templar joins a New York cop and Inspector Teal (back to his slow-witted self) to solve a particularly impenetrable locked-room murder and to stop some visiting gangsters plying their murderous trade.
I liked that early in the story that The Saint acknowledges himself as a literary character, saying that he wouldn’t reveal his plans until tied to a chair in Chapter 14 (which doesn’t happen, by the way); and I liked the twist ending – which took me by surprise even though in hindsight it was clearly signposted. But all in all this is a lumpy tale which tries to do too much, and I much prefer them when they have sleeker and straighter lines.
The National Debt
And here’s another way to attack a Saint story, and one to really make us question quite what the word ‘adventurer’ means. As here Simon Templar is posing as detective in a B&B in Wales; seems a bit of a leap from his normal skullduggerous activities and even a bit mundane, but why shouldn’t an adventurer be a detective? Just as why shouldn’t he be a jewel thief? Or an assassin? Or a guerrilla revolutionary? The word ‘adventurer’ is such an open job description and could mean absolutely anything. At its most basic it’s someone who has adventures, no more prescriptive that that – but that’s what makes The Saint stories so open and wonderful a prospect.
Here The Saint, pursuing leads, checks into small bed & breakfast in Llancoed (the kind of made up Welsh place name to rival Ponty-Pandy in ‘Fireman Sam’). Unlike most Welsh bed & breakfasts however, this one has a couple of international villains in residence, as well as a woman around whom hangs an air of great mystery.
‘The National Debt’ is a detective yarn which is more of a whataretheyupto? than a whodunnt? It’s diverting fun though, even if it does feel small scale; though that small scale is why the TV version leapt all over it.
In the notes to this edition it becomes clear how embryonic the character of The Saint was at this point. The reason in ‘The National Debt’ that Simon Templar pretends for so long to be a detective called Rameses Smith is that this originally was a story about a detective called Ramases Smith and was later adapted to fit Templar.
It would be great to lie the Saint tales out in the order they were written, have a look at what was happening in the world as they were created (to see how much inspiration Charteris drew from real life events) and really look at how this character and the stories about him evolved.
Maybe I’ll do that one day. -
A lot of what happens to the Saint is utterly ridiculous, but he knows it, and it's hard to resist the way he takes us by the hand and invites us to suspend disbelief. Genre-savvy before it was a thing, and a genuinely charming hero from an age whose charming heroes mostly look, these days, like smug, misogynist racists.
-
Only for hardcore fans—these are very early Saint stories. The first two of the three stories are dreadfully written, as Charteris himself admits in the preface. The third is also a very early story, but one can see the character of the Saint actually taking shape.
-
These are stories from the early days of the Saint.
But unfortunately, there are several different editions, containing different stories; and even more unfortunately, Amazon munges reviews for many of the editions together. So I must make some tedious distinctions, and ask your indulgence.
The standard edition
has three stories:
The Story of a Dead Man finds Simon turning businessman for very unorthodox reasons.
The Impossible Crime is, among other things, the author’s offering in that favourite genre of detective fiction, the Locked Room Murder Mystery.
In The National Debt, in the identity of Professor Rameses Smith-Smyth-Smythe (!), Simon takes on some 20th century pirates operating from an inn in South Wales. For those interested in such trivia, this story features the first appearance of Basher Tope, later to materialise in
The Holy Terror and finally in
Once More the Saint/The Saint and Mr. Teal.
4 stars.
The 1945 Jacobs edition
appears to comprise two stories only, both normally being found in
Featuring the Saint, but missing the latter’s The Man Who Could Not Die.
The edition, then, is neither fish nor fowl, and bad value besides.
3 stars for the stories.
The 1950 Avon edition
is a hybrid, with two stories only:
The National Debt
The Man Who Could Not Die,
the latter normally (as I’ve said) being found in
Featuring the Saint.
So likewise bad value.
3 stars for the stories. -
I first read the Saint at my grandparents' house - my grandfather also enjoyed reading mysteries (though a different type than I usually read) and I am sure that I first read The Saint in books that belonged to him. I enjoyed them as a teenager, and these stories are about what I remember: though I do not remember reading these particular stories before. These are from very early on in the Sant's career - and it shows some, the character is not as formed as it would be later. I also learned that Leslie Charteris was of Chinese-English descent, his father being a Chinese doctor and his mother an Englishwoman, and he was brought up in Singapore and later England. As such, he was affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act, and not allowed to apply for citizenship in the US until (according to Wikipedia) an Act of Congress granted him and his daughter citizenship. The character of the Saint, interestingly, is of a man who has little to no background - as is pointed out, he doesn't get out of his exploits by appealing to mysterious elite relatives or connections: such connections as he has are decidedly middle-class and plebeian.
-
The edition I have has only two stories mentioned.
'The National Debt': A bit over done and confusing at times as The Saint character, using an alias is suspected and accepted at the same time by a gang of bad guys. That makes little sense. Also the coercion of a scientist seems also far fetched. it all ends as such stories do, but I felt very unsatisfactory in the end.
'The Man Who could Not Die': This is a nifty short tale that is also confusing as the story has various flashbacks and the editing makes where those start and stop not clear. It all seemed obvious to me. As did the conclusion.
Bottom line: i don't recommend the book. 4 out of ten points. -
In the 70s the Saint was brought to the screen by Roger Moore. Subsequently other attempts were made to revive his fame but he is certainly a very dated character (this particular book was written in 1931). Reading this book was fun (as is watching the series) if you place the events in their time and therefore ignore heavy stereotypes. The Saint is a somewhat ambiguous character. He fights injustice but sometimes has a very personal idea of justice and often acts for money. Despite all this he is a very cunning character and it is fun to see how he manages to get out of trouble and solve even the most intricate situations.
-
First published in 1931, 'Alias the Saint' is a short selection of early stories featuring Simon Templar. Most irritating, the stories vary depending on the edition - mine contained two novellas 'The National Debt' and 'The Man Who Could not Die', the second of which I had already read from another book in the series. In spite of that, the stories are great fun with uncompromising two-dimensional villains gnashing their teeth at the drop of a hat. A pleasant diversion.
-
Another solid offering in the Saint series. I'm not a big fan of short stories as they don't tend to leave as much of an impression as novels. However, the combination of Charteris' prose with what would now be considered a "period piece" and a nostalgic hero all combine to make these short stories memorable.
-
Another great Saint book. I'm really enjoying getting reacquainted with this old antihero.
-
I've read much better entries in the series.
-
Three fun adventures of the Saint: The Story of a Dead Man, with Inspector Teal; The Impossible Crime, also with Inspector Teal; and The National Debt.
-
Leslie Charteris is now all but forgotten, but for much of the 20th century he was an immensely popular author, and the adventures of his fictional hero Simon Templar, known as The Saint, could be followed in radio serials, a succession of B-movies in the 1940s (initially starring the delightful George Sanders, and later Sanders’ brother Tom Conway), a 1960s TV series, another TV series in the 1970s, and several 1960s movies. Charteris, who was born in Singapore, was in fact half-Chinese and half-English. He later an American citizen (although this involved a considerable struggle on his part because of the racist immigration laws of the time). Alias the Saint is one of the earlier books featuring Simon Templar, and came out in 1931. It actually comprises three novellas. It differs from most English crime fiction of that time in that the hero is (despite his name) morally somewhat dubious. He was at one time an out-and-out criminal, and although he’s now on the side of the angels (mostly) his methods are often only marginally legal, and at times clearly illegal. In some ways the stories are a cross between detective fiction and adventure stories. They’re fun in their own way, and Templar is a charming and rather likeable rogue.
-
Originally published on my blog
here in October 1999.
Like so many of the Saint series, Alias the Saint contains three disconnected stories of the length Charteris found most pleasant to write. The book is from the early period when he was churning out the stories at an incredible speed, particularly given their quality. In this collection, we have the story in which Simon Templar first uses his favourite alias of Sebastian Tombs (chosen to annoy Chief Inspector Teal), a locked room mystery, and a complex plot revolving around a kidnapped (beautiful, female) chemist rescued by Templar.
The first story is the best, having a lot of humour and a twist. The middle one gets a bit bogged down, and I found the last one a little far-fetched. But there's still more in the Saint of the thirties than in most other thrillers of any decade, even when the stories are not Charteris' best. -
An early collection of three novellas, this is fun but perhaps one for the Saint completist and certainly not the one to start with if you've never tried the books before.
The problem is that the stories are re-workings of ones Charteris had previously written with different lead characters, police detectives, and it shows as they are atypical examples. Here, Simon Templar is essentially acting as an unofficial operative of Scotland Yard, and it is not a comfortable fit.
Having said that, if you are a Saint fan then this is a worthy addition to your reading and they do have a certain historic interest. -
This one was quite a struggle to get through. Very little of the traditional Saint-ly charm is in evidence here, doubtless because, as I wish I'd known in advance, these aren't really Saint stories at all, but thinly repurposed early Charteris tales with the character names substituted later — or, in the case of “The National Debt” (aka “The Secret of Beacon Inn”), not even so much substituted as having the lead character, Rameses Smith, simply turned into an alias for Templar. The first, “The Story of a Dead Man” at least has a few positive glimpses of what was to come later, but in general these are all rather poor. ★☆
-
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. As a fan of traditional mystery/crime fiction I had a felling I would like the Saint and I was right. The saint character reminded me of Campion however a much more polished and morally ambiguous version. Not generally being a fan of short stories I wondered how these three would fit together, Charteris has that rare talent of making a small cast of familiar characters exciting and almost predictable at the same time. I will be reading more of the Saint series if only to learn more about Teals chewing gum habit.
-
Alias the Saint has three stories in it, and two of them don't lend themselves well to an audiobook. Several times I had to go back because there was an info-dump and I couldn't get the characters straight! The 3rd story worked the best, maybe because of the way the tale unfolded. Maybe I'll come back to this one after I've listened to more audiobooks and see if it improves on a 2nd listen.
-
Over-wrought and over-written, these vintage adventure stories show their age. Simon Templar is smooth and charming and he has it both ways as he takes on pirates and a locked door murder. The language is clang-y and stuffed with antique slang.
Problematic. -
A collection of 3 stories, two of them featuring Claude Eustace Teal who was Simon's weary nemesis. CI Teal was one of my favorite characters in the series.
-
reread today. 3 novellas. good plots.
-
Not the best of The Saint, but still very fun.
-
Three stories of the Saint. The Saint also seems to be helping the police more in these stories.
Okay writing. I mainly read these because I liked the TV series so much.
