Gerry Sant of the Secret Service

by William Le Queux

From the To those who, like myself, have moved in the Continental underworld of spies and spying, the name of "Sant of the Secret Service" is synonymous with all that is ingenious, resourceful, and daring. In the Intelligence Departments of London, Paris, Rome, and New York, the name of "Sant of the Secret Service" is to-day one to conjure with. Cheerful, optimistic, and the most modest of men, Gerry Sant has seldom spoken of his own adventures. The son of a certain nobleman who must here remain nameless, and hence the scion of a noble house, he has graduated through all stages of the dark and devious ways of espionage. Our first meeting was ten years ago, in the tribune at the Battle of Flowers at San Remo, where, to be exact, we were fellow-members of the committee, and it is because of our old friendship, and the fact that we have been fellow-spies up and down Europe, that he has permitted me to write down these intensely absorbing memoirs of exciting and unrecorded adventures in defeating the Hun.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Novelist William Tufnell Le Queux was born in London on 2 July 1864. His father, also William of Chateauroux, Indre, was a French draper's assistant and his mother was English.

He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio Spiridon in Paris. He walked extensively in France and Germany and supported himself for a time writing for French newspapers. It was one of his sensational stories in The Petit Journal that attracted the attention of the French novelist Emile Zola and it was supposedly he who encouraged Le Queux to become a full-time writer.

In the late 1880s he returned to London where he edited the Gossip and Piccadilly magazines before joining the staff of The Globe newspaper in 1891 as a parliamentary reporter. But he resigned in 1893 and decided to abandon journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. And his extensive travelling saw him visit Russia, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and in 1912–13 he was a correspondent in the Balkan War for the Daily Mail. On his travels he found it necessary to become an expert revolver shot.

His first book was Guilty Bonds (1891), which concentrated on political conspiracy in Russia to such a degree that it was subsequently banned in that country. A series of short stories Strange Tales of a Nihilist followed in 1892 and from then on he was producing books on a regular basis until his death, and beyond, as a number of posthumous works were published.

His works mainly related to espionage activity and it was said that he was employed for a number of years as a member of the British Secret Service, where he was an expert on wireless transmission. He did claim to have been the first wireless experimenter to have broadcast from his station at Guildford in 1920/21 and he was president of the Wireless Experimental Association and a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

He stated at one time that he began writing to help finance his work for British Intelligence for whom he was required to undertake much travelling and to make personal contact with royalty and other high-ranking people. He recorded some of the latter meetings in his autobiography entitled Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks (1923).

He was at one time Consul of the Republic of San Marino and he possessed Italian, Serbian and Montenegrin decorations. He was also a keen collector of medieval manuscripts and monastic seals.

However, all his activities did not stop him turning out novel after novel and at the time of his death he had well over 100 books to his credit.

After several weeks' illness, he died at Knocke, Belgium, in the early hours of 13 October 1927. His body was returned to England and on 19 October he was cremated at Golders Green with the Reverend Francis Taylor of Bedford conducting the service, which was attended by Le Queux's brother and a few intimate friends. (Gerry Wolstenholme, January 2013)

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's much in this that wouldn't stand up today. Important discoveries are made offstage, new characters pop up out of nowhere, and one plotline lasts for several chapters before ending and being replaced with a new story, so it sits uncomfortably between short story collection and novel. It's an interesting prototype spy story, but I didn't enjoy this one as much as The Gay Triangle.

[Bob Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting from a prototypical ‘spy story’ standpoint having been written over 100 years ago. At times I heard the voice of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and at other times that of Hemingway. But this chain of short stories bundled together as a novel was prosaically written and rather lurchy. Important plot points merely show up without explanation, and conclusions to some of the stories were without climax and rather clunky. It would not hold up well against more modern master-writers like John LeCarre’ or Graham Green or Tom Clancy.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a set of linked short stories about a secret service agent working for the allied forces during the First World War. It was an interesting read as you feel you are watching an old black and white film spy film.

[Nate May · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is quite dry and at time definitely left me with a distinct sense of Hemingway in my mouth. As a look into the mind of a WWI writer it is useful but not a book to have high expectations of.