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The Saint #33
Señor Saint
Four novelettes with the Gentleman Adventurer, Simon Templar, including 'The Pearls of Peace' and 'The Revolution Racket'. In these four mystery, murder and mayhelm tales, Simon takes a Latin-American holiday and runs into four luscious cases of larceny, swindle, murder and revolution!
190 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
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119 people want to read
About the author
Leslie Charteris
595 books162 followersBorn 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."
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 27, 2017
I have been reading a whole lot of serious books lately, so I thought it was time for a break and a bit of intellectual junk food. Since I have come back finally to settle in my hometown of Thrissur in Kerala, what better way to do this than to renew my romance with the public library, my favourite haunt during my college days? So the library it was - and all those musty old books, coming out of their binding and falling apart.
The Saint, of course, was a natural choice. I don't know how popular he is nowadays, but this modern day Robin Hood was apparently all the rage a generation ago. My aunt introduced me to him, and after just reading one story, I fell in love with this swashbuckling buccaneer.
Simon Templar (alias "The Saint") is a thief who steals from the idle rich (who most often have not come by their riches in a lawful manner), a one-man team of lawyer, judge and jury who administers his own kind of vigilante justice to the minions of darkness: he is also handsome, suave and (of course!) a devil with the ladies. He trots across the globe creating havoc, and Leslie Charteris describes these adventures in delectable prose.
To the politically correct purist, many of the Saint stories may be unacceptable as they have racist undertones and are sexist to the core. I also winced reading some of them, but I find that I can forgive the author allowing for the historical factor and the redeeming beauty of his writing.
-----------------------------------
In the current slim volume where the Saint travels in Latin America, there are the usual set of murderers, swindlers, thieves and other such blackguards whose brains and muscle, however, are no match for those of Simon. All the stories are pretty much average, except for the first story ("The Pearls of Peace") which is outstanding and poignant with human interest - quite unusual for a Charteris story.
Given below is a taste of Charteris's beautiful prose.
One can just see the character, almost in the flesh. And notice how he uses the hyperbole of pulp fiction against itself to create a feeling of falseness - which is relevant to the tale.
This is almost worthy of Wodehouse.
The Saint, of course, was a natural choice. I don't know how popular he is nowadays, but this modern day Robin Hood was apparently all the rage a generation ago. My aunt introduced me to him, and after just reading one story, I fell in love with this swashbuckling buccaneer.
Simon Templar (alias "The Saint") is a thief who steals from the idle rich (who most often have not come by their riches in a lawful manner), a one-man team of lawyer, judge and jury who administers his own kind of vigilante justice to the minions of darkness: he is also handsome, suave and (of course!) a devil with the ladies. He trots across the globe creating havoc, and Leslie Charteris describes these adventures in delectable prose.
To the politically correct purist, many of the Saint stories may be unacceptable as they have racist undertones and are sexist to the core. I also winced reading some of them, but I find that I can forgive the author allowing for the historical factor and the redeeming beauty of his writing.
-----------------------------------
In the current slim volume where the Saint travels in Latin America, there are the usual set of murderers, swindlers, thieves and other such blackguards whose brains and muscle, however, are no match for those of Simon. All the stories are pretty much average, except for the first story ("The Pearls of Peace") which is outstanding and poignant with human interest - quite unusual for a Charteris story.
Given below is a taste of Charteris's beautiful prose.
...She was a type. She was the half-disrobed siren on the jacket of a certain type of paper-bound fiction. She was the girl in the phony-tough school of detective stories, the girl that the grotesque private eye with the unpaid rent and the bottle of cheap whisky in his desk drawer is always running into, who throws her thighs and breasts at him and responds like hot jelly to his simian virility. She had all the standard equipment - the auburn hair, the bedroom eyes, the fabulous mammary glands, the clothes that clung suggestively to her figure, the husky voice, the full moist lips that looked as if they would respond lecherously enough to satisfy any addict of that style of writing...
One can just see the character, almost in the flesh. And notice how he uses the hyperbole of pulp fiction against itself to create a feeling of falseness - which is relevant to the tale.
...He had barely taken one glance up and down the street when a taxi, drawn by the uncanny instinct for prey that achieves its supreme development in the vulture and the Havana taxi driver, made a screaming U turn and swooped into the curb beside him.
This is almost worthy of Wodehouse.
September 21, 2015
The first Saint book I ever read was ‘The Saint on the Spanish Main’ and I’ll admit that I was sorely disappointed. Fortunately though my goodreads chums were on hand to point out that ‘The Saint on the Spanish Main’ was written post-war, while the best Simon Templar stories are definitely pre-war. I’ve positively revelled in the pre-war books these last couple of years, but I’ve had a growing – and maybe slightly perverse – curiosity to re-visit the post-war stories, just to see if they’re as much of a trudge as I originally thought.
As usual, I’ve review each story as I get to it:
The Pearls of Peace
The first thing that strikes you is the lack of joy.
I’m used to a sparkle in my Saint stories, a joie de vivre, the indomitable and electrified personality that is Simon Templar. Here though he’s a weary, without most of his wit, leathery (has he ever been described as ‘leathery’ before?) detective. That alone seems a distinction worth noting in itself: he’s a detective here rather than an adventurer. Okay there’s a bit of playfulness around the edges, but this is a far cry from The Saint who frequented various snazzy London nightclubs and kept delightful properties in Mayfair. Stuck in a similarly weary, worn-out desert town, the other characters are similarly without spark – there’s a wealthy American bombshell who even the narrative acknowledges is straight out of central casting, a local and ugly prostitute, and a sad-sack former treasure-hunter. All of them add up to quite a dour story, and dourness is not what you want or expect from The Saint. Simon Templar doesn’t feel like Simon Templar here, instead he’s just another old tough guy doing tough guy things surrounded by tough people in a tough town – and it’s all a bit disappointing.
The Revolution Racket
This is more like it!
Whereas the last story had a Simon who clearly wasn’t himself in a tale which didn’t feel like a good fit for any version of Simon Templar, ‘The Revolution Racket’ clearly belongs to The Saint. Yes, it’s set in Mexico City rather than London and has a policeman whose behaviour would appal Claude Eustace Teal, but there’s a con game, a beautiful woman, some unsavoury characters who deserve a comeuppance and a double-cross forever in the offing.
Thank God for that!
True Simon isn’t quite the way you may remember him. Without The Saintly gang, without his Mayfair home-base, he seems a diminished figure. Rootless, he apparently wanders from unsavoury neighbourhood to insalubrious locale, parlaying his notoriety into entrée to all kinds of scrapes and shady schemes. Some of the charm has been rubbed way from him, most of the ready wit has been knocked from his character. He seems more of a survivor than an energetic instigator. So yes, he is still The Saint, but harder, colder, lonelier.
Except maybe he isn’t all that lonely. This is the second story in a row in which a fantastically lubricous American damsel has put the moves on our Simon. It used to be that the cool, elegance of Patricia Holm was his turn-on, but now he goes for dames straight out of a Mike Hammer novel. I hope Patricia isn’t too jealous.
The Romantic Matron
We have here the advent of ‘Simon Templar – Music Critic’. In a Havana nightclub on the tourist trail, he finds that “a typically tuneless bedlam of brass was in a full frenzied swing” and that he’s inflicted by a “cacophony magnified to the maximum intensity attainable through the abuse of modern electronics”. Whereas others are happy to go “through the motions of the rumba or sambo or mambo or whatever the current terpsichorean aphrodisiac was being called that season”, he finds himself desperate “to get away while he still had a few other faculties left, before the stupefying din left permanent scar tissue among his brain cells.”
Given his man of the world credentials it seems bizarre to hear Simon sounding like a little Englander who’s missing Benjamin Britten. It’s like when Sean Connery’s Bond, icon of the Sixties, disses The Beatles, icon of the Sixties, in ‘Goldfinger’. These opinions just feel jarring come from these character’s mouths. One has to respect other people’s views, of course, but I think if Simon Templar does start a music blog, I’ll give it a miss.
Okay, clearly something is up as once again we have an attractive American lady for The Saint to tangle with. It’s three for three so far in this collection. I’ve had a look online and Chateris did indeed marry an American, so no doubt love is responsible (although love doesn’t explain why he made the women in the other two stories so ridiculously hard-boiled). Like ‘The Revolution Racket’ this is another story that feels like it fits The Saint. It’s not top drawer, but is definitely from the right filing cabinet.
There’s a certain comedy of hindsight in Simon’s predictions that the people of Cuba will never rise up in revolution, but even though he’s not quite himself – the gaiety, the exuberant recklessness are gone, seemingly forever – there’s enough of him to please us fans.
The Golden Frog
Shoulders, head and haircut above the other stories collected in ‘Señor Saint’. Here we have Charteris playing successfully and beautifully with the expectations he put in place. Instead of focusing on The Saint as he tries to take down some deserving outlaws, instead we focus on two low-rent con-artists as they try to take down the latest mark they’ve met, a certain Mr ‘Sebastian Tombs’. Of course The Saint is going to get the upper hand, but what makes this story so masterful is the sense of fun we all get from watching him do it.
I freely admit I was cynical when I picked up this later collection, but this is a story which could stand side by side with the earlier tales.
And yes, there is another gorgeous shapely American in it. Charteris must really have been besotted.
So not as bad as I feared. Yes the joie de vivre has well and truly gone, and this collection suffers more than a little by opening with a right stinker, but this is in the end and older, soberer, but still enjoyable Saint collection.
As usual, I’ve review each story as I get to it:
The Pearls of Peace
The first thing that strikes you is the lack of joy.
I’m used to a sparkle in my Saint stories, a joie de vivre, the indomitable and electrified personality that is Simon Templar. Here though he’s a weary, without most of his wit, leathery (has he ever been described as ‘leathery’ before?) detective. That alone seems a distinction worth noting in itself: he’s a detective here rather than an adventurer. Okay there’s a bit of playfulness around the edges, but this is a far cry from The Saint who frequented various snazzy London nightclubs and kept delightful properties in Mayfair. Stuck in a similarly weary, worn-out desert town, the other characters are similarly without spark – there’s a wealthy American bombshell who even the narrative acknowledges is straight out of central casting, a local and ugly prostitute, and a sad-sack former treasure-hunter. All of them add up to quite a dour story, and dourness is not what you want or expect from The Saint. Simon Templar doesn’t feel like Simon Templar here, instead he’s just another old tough guy doing tough guy things surrounded by tough people in a tough town – and it’s all a bit disappointing.
The Revolution Racket
This is more like it!
Whereas the last story had a Simon who clearly wasn’t himself in a tale which didn’t feel like a good fit for any version of Simon Templar, ‘The Revolution Racket’ clearly belongs to The Saint. Yes, it’s set in Mexico City rather than London and has a policeman whose behaviour would appal Claude Eustace Teal, but there’s a con game, a beautiful woman, some unsavoury characters who deserve a comeuppance and a double-cross forever in the offing.
Thank God for that!
True Simon isn’t quite the way you may remember him. Without The Saintly gang, without his Mayfair home-base, he seems a diminished figure. Rootless, he apparently wanders from unsavoury neighbourhood to insalubrious locale, parlaying his notoriety into entrée to all kinds of scrapes and shady schemes. Some of the charm has been rubbed way from him, most of the ready wit has been knocked from his character. He seems more of a survivor than an energetic instigator. So yes, he is still The Saint, but harder, colder, lonelier.
Except maybe he isn’t all that lonely. This is the second story in a row in which a fantastically lubricous American damsel has put the moves on our Simon. It used to be that the cool, elegance of Patricia Holm was his turn-on, but now he goes for dames straight out of a Mike Hammer novel. I hope Patricia isn’t too jealous.
The Romantic Matron
We have here the advent of ‘Simon Templar – Music Critic’. In a Havana nightclub on the tourist trail, he finds that “a typically tuneless bedlam of brass was in a full frenzied swing” and that he’s inflicted by a “cacophony magnified to the maximum intensity attainable through the abuse of modern electronics”. Whereas others are happy to go “through the motions of the rumba or sambo or mambo or whatever the current terpsichorean aphrodisiac was being called that season”, he finds himself desperate “to get away while he still had a few other faculties left, before the stupefying din left permanent scar tissue among his brain cells.”
Given his man of the world credentials it seems bizarre to hear Simon sounding like a little Englander who’s missing Benjamin Britten. It’s like when Sean Connery’s Bond, icon of the Sixties, disses The Beatles, icon of the Sixties, in ‘Goldfinger’. These opinions just feel jarring come from these character’s mouths. One has to respect other people’s views, of course, but I think if Simon Templar does start a music blog, I’ll give it a miss.
Okay, clearly something is up as once again we have an attractive American lady for The Saint to tangle with. It’s three for three so far in this collection. I’ve had a look online and Chateris did indeed marry an American, so no doubt love is responsible (although love doesn’t explain why he made the women in the other two stories so ridiculously hard-boiled). Like ‘The Revolution Racket’ this is another story that feels like it fits The Saint. It’s not top drawer, but is definitely from the right filing cabinet.
There’s a certain comedy of hindsight in Simon’s predictions that the people of Cuba will never rise up in revolution, but even though he’s not quite himself – the gaiety, the exuberant recklessness are gone, seemingly forever – there’s enough of him to please us fans.
The Golden Frog
Shoulders, head and haircut above the other stories collected in ‘Señor Saint’. Here we have Charteris playing successfully and beautifully with the expectations he put in place. Instead of focusing on The Saint as he tries to take down some deserving outlaws, instead we focus on two low-rent con-artists as they try to take down the latest mark they’ve met, a certain Mr ‘Sebastian Tombs’. Of course The Saint is going to get the upper hand, but what makes this story so masterful is the sense of fun we all get from watching him do it.
I freely admit I was cynical when I picked up this later collection, but this is a story which could stand side by side with the earlier tales.
And yes, there is another gorgeous shapely American in it. Charteris must really have been besotted.
So not as bad as I feared. Yes the joie de vivre has well and truly gone, and this collection suffers more than a little by opening with a right stinker, but this is in the end and older, soberer, but still enjoyable Saint collection.
December 7, 2021
Not my new favorite collection of Saint stories, but these were light and frolicsome and diverting, which is just what I needed when I read it, so I call that a reading win :-)
June 21, 2025
Latin American settings seem to bring out the best in Leslie Charteris's Saint short stories. This collection contains four longish stories (not novellas) with two set in Mexico, one in Cuba, and the last one in Panama around the Canal Zone. With "The Pearls of Peace," where a would-be American adventurer and his British partner visit Baja California planning on exploiting a bed of pearls, LC walks a fine line between pathos and saccharine melodrama. (The Roger Moore television episode couldn't pull this off, going full saccharine throughout but especially at the conclusion.) The tragedy that afflicts the American and indirectly the Mexican woman, who picks him up out of the street and protects him, was relieved with just enough hard edges to make it palatable to anyone but an afficiando of the sentimentality of "Poor little Nell." Next up, "The Revolution Racket," is more grand irony at work in LC's adventure stories. When a couple of scamming gun-runners enlist Simon's help in defrauding the Enrequez brothers and their plan for a revolution, the Saint works out the con and walks away with all the boodle at the end--until a Mexican policeman shows up wanting his cut. Moving to Cuba, a lonely American widow looking for meaning in her life gets wrapped up in a gold robbery, while thinking she's helping to overthrow the Batista government, albeit Batista is never directly referred to. Good story, great atmosphere, and no slack in the pace whatsoever, as Templar once again turns the table on the bad guys. You'll never guess where they hid the gold--unless you remember the somewhat subpar television episode. Finally, "The Golden Frog" is the best of the four tales. Mixed in with more than a dash of comedy, it brings straight out adventure treasure hunting to the coast of Panama. More con games, dupes, and a wonderful village of fake headhunters.
Charteris, like Simon Templar, has been slowing down in these mid 1950s stories. But Señor Saint rouses both out of their lethargy. It's nice to see Simon operating with some urgency and not simply stuck in a restaurant or a hotel room. Here, he dives into the atmosphere of marginal places, dangerous climes, and deadly encounters. Almost a harkening back to the Saint of the 1930s. Not quite, however, because he no longer has the anonymity of that earlier saintly Robin Hood. Yet the tone of these stories is just about perfect. LC balances the florid wit of earlier years with a more mature, concise, and efficient storyline. Simon can still brawl, too. And, of course, it's always reassuring to find out the Saint has been one jump ahead, no matter how skillful the villains.
Charteris, like Simon Templar, has been slowing down in these mid 1950s stories. But Señor Saint rouses both out of their lethargy. It's nice to see Simon operating with some urgency and not simply stuck in a restaurant or a hotel room. Here, he dives into the atmosphere of marginal places, dangerous climes, and deadly encounters. Almost a harkening back to the Saint of the 1930s. Not quite, however, because he no longer has the anonymity of that earlier saintly Robin Hood. Yet the tone of these stories is just about perfect. LC balances the florid wit of earlier years with a more mature, concise, and efficient storyline. Simon can still brawl, too. And, of course, it's always reassuring to find out the Saint has been one jump ahead, no matter how skillful the villains.
September 1, 2018
Four tales set in Latin America, specifically: Baja California, Mexico City, Cuba and Panama.
The first is a love story, and demonstrates well Charteris’s narrative ability. I particularly like the way the readers are left to fill in the conclusion of the story for themselves.
Charteris always seems to be personally acquainted with all the places he sets stories in; if this isn’t actually the case, it’s a remarkable imitation. The geographical and circumstantial detail help to disguise that the remaining stories are all variations on the “swindling swindlers” plot, which has by now become formulaic. The details are still inventive, though.
The first is a love story, and demonstrates well Charteris’s narrative ability. I particularly like the way the readers are left to fill in the conclusion of the story for themselves.
Charteris always seems to be personally acquainted with all the places he sets stories in; if this isn’t actually the case, it’s a remarkable imitation. The geographical and circumstantial detail help to disguise that the remaining stories are all variations on the “swindling swindlers” plot, which has by now become formulaic. The details are still inventive, though.
August 4, 2022
This was a departure for me, and something that gave me an insight into that kind of serial pulp writing, with the Simon Templar character.
It's a book of 4 short stories, 2 of which are fairly interesting and 2 of which are pretty indifferent.
It's a book of 4 short stories, 2 of which are fairly interesting and 2 of which are pretty indifferent.
April 26, 2019
Four short stories (or rather, novelettes) and the first one, THE PEARLS OF PEACE, is great, makes the whole book worthwhile!
December 7, 2021
Eminently readable shaggy dog stories
February 5, 2018
Originally published on my blog here in September 2001.
Four stories set in Latin America (Baja California, Mexico City, Havana and Panama) make up this collection. They are all different variations on the theme of a swindle, some from the point of view of the innocent victims - who are not necessarily the characters you expect - and some from that of the swindler.
This is well trodden, familiar territory for Charteris, and the stories are typical, charming and amusing little thrillers if nothing very special. The original appearances of the stories was in 1953 and 1954, and this is given in the prefatory material of this edition, something unusual in the Saint series. This is probably because the Cuban revolution occurred before the book version appeared, so that the situation in Havana had changed, and the publisher wanted the reader to be aware that this was the case.
Four stories set in Latin America (Baja California, Mexico City, Havana and Panama) make up this collection. They are all different variations on the theme of a swindle, some from the point of view of the innocent victims - who are not necessarily the characters you expect - and some from that of the swindler.
This is well trodden, familiar territory for Charteris, and the stories are typical, charming and amusing little thrillers if nothing very special. The original appearances of the stories was in 1953 and 1954, and this is given in the prefatory material of this edition, something unusual in the Saint series. This is probably because the Cuban revolution occurred before the book version appeared, so that the situation in Havana had changed, and the publisher wanted the reader to be aware that this was the case.
July 2, 2016
A thoroughly enjoyable foursome of short stories written in a prose style which is elegant and informative. I loved watching The Saint as a child but I'd never read any of the books until now. I'll definitely be reading more soon though.
June 17, 2019
Contains the following stories.
"The Pearls of Peace"
"The Revolution Racket"
"The Romantic Matron"
"The Golden Frog"
"The Pearls of Peace"
"The Revolution Racket"
"The Romantic Matron"
"The Golden Frog"
September 9, 2016
A very enjoyable quartet of the bad guys getting what's coming to them. Setting each tale around the femme fatale or damsel in distress helped define each story. The second was my favorite.
April 5, 2017
Good fun
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews