The Saint Goes West

The Saint #23

by Leslie Charteris

When the Saint visits Arizona, he battles a Nazi scientist whose interest in ranching is prompted by the mercury deposits underneath the ranch. In Palm Springs, an alcoholic millionaire hires him after a series of near-fatal accidents. And real danger ensues in Hollywood when an enterprising producer decides the Saint should be a movie star—but then the producer turns up dead.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Adventure, Detective

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, Leslie Charteris was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."

Reviews

[Paul Magnussen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1942, this is the first of the wartime Saint books, and (to judge by a couple of tongue-in-check references) the first one on which American censorship clamped its clammy fingers, eliminating all the immoral activities that made the previous Saint books such fun.

There are three novellas:

In Arizona, the Saint foils an attempt by the Nazi-American Bund to take over a mineral-rich ranch. There are intriguing hints that Charteris knew of the Manhattan project, since the Saint says:

“[O]ne day thousands of men will be killed will be killed and cities will be blasted with what there is on this ranch.”

The mineral concerned is later (sensibly) stated to be cinnabar; but cinnabar is not found in quantity in Arizona, and pitchblende is.

In Palm Springs, the Saint bodyguards a spoiled playboy who has received a threat on his life.

In Hollywood the Saint solves the murder of an obnoxious film producer, commenting:

“I feel rather satisfied about Ufferlitz getting killed... Once upon a time, before the Hays Office got hold of me, I might easily have killed him myself.”

These last two stories do not sit well in wartime scenario, and, after the first one, lead one to wonder what on Earth the Saint can have been thinking of. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they were actually written in peacetime, and used here as filler.

However that may be, all three stories are rather formulaic.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in March 2001.

Two of the three stories in this wartime Saint book have nothing to do with the war, and even in the other, the first, it is not essential to the plot. The stories follow on from The Saint in Miami, and are the adventures encountered by Simon Templar as he travels west through Arizona and California, with the titles given by the locations: Arizona, Palm Springs and Hollywood.

Each story is enjoyable, without being among Charteris' best. Palm Springs and Hollywood are both detective stories. The first has a millionaire hiring the Saint as a bodyguard after receiving death threats, and the second has a film producer killed after offering the Saint the starring role in his next film. The investigative technique used in this story leaves a lot to be desired (it is partly a satire of this kind of mystery story); Simon accuses each person in turn of being the murderer - all quite plausibly - until he finds the right one.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Saint is always good value and this volume of three novellas didn't disappoint. It's wartime, and you would expect Simon Templar to be causing trouble in Europe somewhere; in fact, a character in the first story speculates that this is what the Saint would be doing to serve his country, rather than serving with the armed forces. In this tale he is indeed in patriotic pursuit of sinister Germans, but the other two stories find him having a good time and solving murder mysteries. I am particularly grateful for the gift of the phrase 'pluperfect uselessness', which I plan to employ at every opportunity.

[Michele Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to read this book about a James Bond character who ends up in Hollywood, solves mysteries, and is chased by beautiful women.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three wartime era novellas (1942) that Charteris wrote while he was in America make up The Saint Goes West. The first one, "Arizona," is the least effective of the bunch, for me, because it seems so much like a duded up Western from the 1940s, which it was, of course. While the trappings of the Western and Cowboy slang with rootin' tootin' six-shooters and all make me wince, the story itself is pretty good--Nazi agents taking over a mineral deposit used for making munitions. In fact, the story plays much better in the Roger Moore television version, which occurred during season three of The Saint. There the story was shifted to Southeast Asia (alluding to the Malayan Emergency, which had just ended) and replaced Nazis with Communist agents. The jungle terrain and iconography works much better than the book's Western locale.

The next two novellas are a notch above, especially "Hollywood," which is the best hard-boiled/noir effort I've so far read in the series. Punchy, dark, violent and peppered with quips and jargon that could have come out of The Big Sleep. This story, too, was made into an episode with Roger Moore. But the television version is far inferior to Charteris' book version. It's set in the UK and focused on the UK film industry instead of Hollywood. It's far weaker fare. The middle story, "Palm Springs," is a nice compromise between both "Arizona" and "Hollywood," as its setting in the California wilderness still makes use of some Western motifs as well as Hollywood celebrity. A dandy in the Old West might see the connections with Simon's eventual villain in this tale.

[Deborah Gebhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast fun read of three Saint adventures.
The adventures are all back-to-back in 1939 USA when troubles are brewing in Europe. The stories are Arizona, Palm Springs and Hollywood and for some reason Arizona was dropped from the first America publishing in 1948, even though it is referenced in the story Hollywood and isn't returned to the book until the 1982 Ace Charter edition.
Arizona-Simon with his ears open and individuals willing to pass information on to him, decides to invite himself into a situation that is brewing. There are bad men out there trying to take advantage of a man and his daughter and Simon wants to be there to assist.
Palm Springs-Simon is hired to be the bodyguard of a rich man and his three resident girlfriends.
Hollywood-Simon is hired to play himself on screen and is employer is murdered and someone wants Simon charged with the crime.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3

The 3 longish short stories in this collection are entertaining enough whilst reading them and they pass the time nicely. They won’t stick around in the memory for very long though I think.
They are not the worst ST stories but neither are they close to the best ones.
Overall average I think, but still worth reading.

[Yacine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't like anything about that book

[Mark Baines · Rating 2 out of 5]

3 separate story package, of the infamous Simon Templar stateside. Usual fare, with some excellent descriptive prose, always useful to refresh ones vocabulary .
A decent read for relaxation.

[NK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two separate stories. The second story was better than the first. All during the reading I pictured George Sanders (the 1930s movies Saint) vs the 1960s television Saint.

[Doug Newdick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is definitely not one of the best Saint books. 3 long stories, and they mostly lack punch. Still a good piece of escapism though.

[Chriss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The two novellas in this edition are two of the most exiting Saint stories.