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The Saint #29
Saint in Europe
Reprint of the ed. published for the Crime Club by Doubleday, New York.
203 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
33 people are currently reading
136 people want to read
About the author
Leslie Charteris
592 books161 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 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 19, 2023
A delightful collection of short stories featuring Simon Templar, who manages to get mixed up with criminals even when he is just trying to have a holiday....and this has been a very enjoyable read during my holiday in Spain.
The story The Golden Journey was especially enjoyable, even though it doesn't feature any criminals at all. I remember some of these adventures from the Roger Moore TV series, although they were filmed in a studio in England and not in the exotic locations featured here. Another wonderful revisit to the world of the Saint.
The story The Golden Journey was especially enjoyable, even though it doesn't feature any criminals at all. I remember some of these adventures from the Roger Moore TV series, although they were filmed in a studio in England and not in the exotic locations featured here. Another wonderful revisit to the world of the Saint.
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.
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In this book, we see Simon travelling across Europe on a vacation, but inevitably finding adventure wherever he goes. All the typical paraphernalia of the Saint stories - murder, swindle, international intrigue, despicable criminals and delicious women - are here, as well as the racist and sexist innuendos which rankle. In fact, the fourth story ("The Golden Journey") is better left unread, as this "taming-of-a-shrew" pastiche actually contains a scene of the Saint putting a girl across his knee and spanking her (ouch!). However, it contains two excellent tales also ("The Covetous Headsman" and "The Spanish Cow" - the second one really poignant), so I decided to give it three stars.
Once again, I will leave an excerpt of Charteris's writing.
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 this book, we see Simon travelling across Europe on a vacation, but inevitably finding adventure wherever he goes. All the typical paraphernalia of the Saint stories - murder, swindle, international intrigue, despicable criminals and delicious women - are here, as well as the racist and sexist innuendos which rankle. In fact, the fourth story ("The Golden Journey") is better left unread, as this "taming-of-a-shrew" pastiche actually contains a scene of the Saint putting a girl across his knee and spanking her (ouch!). However, it contains two excellent tales also ("The Covetous Headsman" and "The Spanish Cow" - the second one really poignant), so I decided to give it three stars.
Once again, I will leave an excerpt of Charteris's writing.
...As far as the eye could see in either direction, men and women of all nationalities, ages, shapes, sizes, and shades of colour, stripped to the purely technical minimum of covering demanded by the liberal laws of France, littered themselves along the landscape and wooed the ultra-violet ray with a unanimous concentration of effort that would have restored world prosperity if it had been turned into the channels of banking or breeding pedigree wombats or some such lucrative field of endeavour. Reclining on straw mats, under beach umbrellas, in deck chairs, or even on the well-worn sand itself, they sprawled along the margin of that fashionable stretch of water in a sizzling abandon of scorched flesh that would have made a hungry cannibal lick his lips. To the Saint's occasionally cynical eye there was something reminiscent of an orgy of human sacrifice in that welter of burnt-offerings on the altar of the snobbery of tan. Sometimes he thought that a keen ear might have heard the old sun-god's homeric laughter at the childish sublimation that had repopulated his shrine, as the novices turned themselves like joints on a spit, basted their blistered skin with oils and creams, and lay down to roast again, suffering patiently that they might triumph in the end...
November 2, 2017
Originally published on my blog here in July 2001.
By the mid fifties, Simon Templar is pretty firmly based in the United States. (This changes when the Saint TV series began.) This collection of seven short stories is, however, based around the idea that it is a series of adventures which take place on a lengthy holiday in France and Germany. These include the usual style of adventure - facing those who prey on the innocent, mainly - but there are also two rather unusual stories.
The first of these has dated a bit, and is basically a Saintly version of Captains Courageous; a spoilt, rich young woman is making life difficult for everyone around her, until Simon takes her in hand. By stealing her money and telling the hotel owner that she is a known confidence trickster, he forces her to join him on an idyllic trek through the Black Forest, introducing her to the joys of nature.
Far more convincingly brought off, however, is The Spanish Cow, set on the Riviera. The central character of this is a middle aged rich widow, who owns and wears a fortune in diamonds but manages to expose herself to the mockery and bullying of the other resort guests by, for example, responding to jokes about her appearance by making faces. The Saint is attracted by the diamonds, and is nice to her, only to take pity on her when he realises how lonely she is. It is a sentimental story, unusually so for Charteris, and it succeeds reasonably well in engaging the reader's sympathy.
By the mid fifties, Simon Templar is pretty firmly based in the United States. (This changes when the Saint TV series began.) This collection of seven short stories is, however, based around the idea that it is a series of adventures which take place on a lengthy holiday in France and Germany. These include the usual style of adventure - facing those who prey on the innocent, mainly - but there are also two rather unusual stories.
The first of these has dated a bit, and is basically a Saintly version of Captains Courageous; a spoilt, rich young woman is making life difficult for everyone around her, until Simon takes her in hand. By stealing her money and telling the hotel owner that she is a known confidence trickster, he forces her to join him on an idyllic trek through the Black Forest, introducing her to the joys of nature.
Far more convincingly brought off, however, is The Spanish Cow, set on the Riviera. The central character of this is a middle aged rich widow, who owns and wears a fortune in diamonds but manages to expose herself to the mockery and bullying of the other resort guests by, for example, responding to jokes about her appearance by making faces. The Saint is attracted by the diamonds, and is nice to her, only to take pity on her when he realises how lonely she is. It is a sentimental story, unusually so for Charteris, and it succeeds reasonably well in engaging the reader's sympathy.
September 1, 2018
This is easily the best of the post-war collections of short stories, of which there are seven: they are set in Paris, Amsterdam, The Rhine, The Tyrol, Lucerne, Juan-les-Pins and Rome.
Of these stories, my favourite is the fourth, The Golden Journey. But The Spanish Cow is sheer entertainment, even though the Saint comes perilously close to becoming a gigolo. And The Rhine Maiden at least is a return to the old, pre-war Saint.
Of these stories, my favourite is the fourth, The Golden Journey. But The Spanish Cow is sheer entertainment, even though the Saint comes perilously close to becoming a gigolo. And The Rhine Maiden at least is a return to the old, pre-war Saint.
June 6, 2025
Yet another collection of superb Saint short stories. Charteris seems to excel at this form of storytelling. I don't think it's a coincidence that these stories are also among the best adaptations for the television series. Charteris was thinking along the lines of television adaptation when he published this book in 1953, and many of these selections would go on to appear in the first season of Roger Moore's Saint in 1962. The stories themselves, however, have a longer history. A couple went as far back as 1934, with yet others contemporaneous with the book's appearance in 1953.
Among those earlier works is what I consider the best story in the volume, "The Golden Journey." It is unlike anything else Charteris wrote in the series. There are no "crimes," no violence or theft, unless you count the robbery Simon commits in order to initiate his transformation of Belinda Deane, spoiled entitled American snob, into a woman fit to be the wife of the man who will soon marry her. Those familiar with "The Taming of the Shrew" will recognize the tale's origins in that work, too. It tells the story, simply enough, of Simon and Belinda walking across the Tirol in Austria. Stripped of her wealth, useless expensive shoes, and trapped in expensive non-functional fashion, and especially no longer the recipient of deference from those around her, Belinda starts the process of finally growing up. She does so by story's end, of course. But she doesn't do so before meeting up with a band of Wandervogel, the movement of German nature enthusiasts who rejected commercial industrialization. Charteris is happy with their outlook but feels compelled to apologize for his feeling in the introduction to the story, because, he says, of what the movement led to with the Nazis during the years between his writing it and the 1953 publication. A bit unnecessary, I think, albeit he was committed enough to go ahead and publish it again less than a decade after the ending of the war.
Among those earlier works is what I consider the best story in the volume, "The Golden Journey." It is unlike anything else Charteris wrote in the series. There are no "crimes," no violence or theft, unless you count the robbery Simon commits in order to initiate his transformation of Belinda Deane, spoiled entitled American snob, into a woman fit to be the wife of the man who will soon marry her. Those familiar with "The Taming of the Shrew" will recognize the tale's origins in that work, too. It tells the story, simply enough, of Simon and Belinda walking across the Tirol in Austria. Stripped of her wealth, useless expensive shoes, and trapped in expensive non-functional fashion, and especially no longer the recipient of deference from those around her, Belinda starts the process of finally growing up. She does so by story's end, of course. But she doesn't do so before meeting up with a band of Wandervogel, the movement of German nature enthusiasts who rejected commercial industrialization. Charteris is happy with their outlook but feels compelled to apologize for his feeling in the introduction to the story, because, he says, of what the movement led to with the Nazis during the years between his writing it and the 1953 publication. A bit unnecessary, I think, albeit he was committed enough to go ahead and publish it again less than a decade after the ending of the war.
October 7, 2023
This is the first Saint story I’ve read, and probably the first Leslie Charteris I’ve read. I had been under the impression that The Saint was in the spy or thriller genre, probably because James Bond played him in the television series. But these are squarely in the mystery genre with the twist that Simon Templar (alias Sebastian Tombs alias ST alias The Saint) funds his jet-setting lifestyle through theft—usually from the criminals whose crimes he solves, but also by stealing from unsuspecting marks, usually rich.
He’s also perfectly happy to murder in cold blood if he thinks it will help solve some thorny puzzle.
He doesn’t mind if the people he helps choose to dislike him. He’s never going to see them again anyway.
This collection of unrelated short stories—though they do vaguely refer to each other—sends him through Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Lucerne, Juan-les-Pins, and Rome. By plane, by train, and by foot. He’s a combination Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and James Bond, solving crimes, analyzing relationships (not always correctly), and taking the law entirely into his own hands.
He’s also perfectly happy to murder in cold blood if he thinks it will help solve some thorny puzzle.
He doesn’t mind if the people he helps choose to dislike him. He’s never going to see them again anyway.
This collection of unrelated short stories—though they do vaguely refer to each other—sends him through Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Lucerne, Juan-les-Pins, and Rome. By plane, by train, and by foot. He’s a combination Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and James Bond, solving crimes, analyzing relationships (not always correctly), and taking the law entirely into his own hands.
May 25, 2019
The Saint in Europe, Leslie Charteris, 1953. 195pp. ISBN 0891903879.
Seven fun stories of gentleman thief/vigilante Simon Templar, set in France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy.
Charteris shows us human nature, Europe, languages, and a good time.
The Saint publication order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sai...
permalink:
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Seven fun stories of gentleman thief/vigilante Simon Templar, set in France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy.
Charteris shows us human nature, Europe, languages, and a good time.
The Saint publication order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sai...
permalink:
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
April 9, 2025
The book was first published back in 1953 and does show its age, but it was an enjoyable fast paced read. It furthers the adventures of Simon Templar (thief or a Robin Hood) as he travels through Europe, with different stories covering different regions. If you like the old Saint TV Show, Movie, or the radio spots you will enjoy this book. If you enjoy James Bond you will enjoy this book.
April 30, 2024
The Saint books are always unexpectedly excellent, with good plots/characters and really nice writing. Even though this one feels more modern/1960s, it's STILL really good; many mystery writers cant make that leap from cozy charming pre-1950s to modern times, but Charteris does it well.
May 3, 2024
Briljant geschreven, maar vreselijk gedateerd. Blijft leuk om te lezen, maar af en toe tenenkrommend, vandaar 3 sterren anno 2024
(3 stars due to old fashioned opinions, which can be annoying at times)
(3 stars due to old fashioned opinions, which can be annoying at times)
February 21, 2025
great collection of short takes
Another wonderful trove of Saint stories. While I still prefer the full length tales by Charteris, these brief narratives are among the best he’s ever penned. Bravo and kudos all around.
Another wonderful trove of Saint stories. While I still prefer the full length tales by Charteris, these brief narratives are among the best he’s ever penned. Bravo and kudos all around.
August 15, 2018
A good selection of short stories.
April 19, 2020
First read this about 25 years ago and still remembered some of the stories!
February 28, 2021
An easy read, but a throwback to a time when you could have a protagonist that had no faults (other than a disdain for the law).
August 16, 2024
This has been one of my favorite collections of Saint stories since I discovered it in the 1980s. I only wish Patricia Holm would have shown up on occasion.
December 28, 2014
I'm sure I must have read other Saint books - I certainly remember enjoying the TV series but this didn't stand up to the test of time for me. I just couldn't warm to it.
June 19, 2020
Seven short stories, of variable quality but all of them eminently readable.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews