About the author: Leslie Charteris (1907 – 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his charming hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". Charteris spent 55 years – 1928 to 1983 – as either writer of or custodian of Simon Templar's literary adventures, one of the longest uninterrupted spans of a single author in the history of mystery fiction, equalling that of Agatha Christie (from Wikipedia).
Major characters:
- "Hamilton", The Saint's anonymous government contact
- Colonel Wade, Lisbon embassy
- Major Robert Kinian, who died in 1945
- Vicky Kinian, his daughter
- Curt Jaeger, Nazi posing as a watch salesman
- Freda Oliveiros, stewardess
- Pedro, a killer for hire
- Mischa Ruspine, Russian MVD agent
- Boris Uzanov, Russian MVD agent
- Simon Templar, The Saint
Locale: Lisbon, Portugal and Geneva, Switzerland
Synopsis: The Saint, Simon Templar, gets a call from a US government contact, "Hamilton". He wants Simon to go to Portugal to follow Vicky Kinian, age 25, arriving from Iowa. Her father, Major Robert Kinian, had died in World War II, and to her suprise left a letter to be delivered to her on her 25th birthday.
The letter tells her to retrieve something valuable that he hid away in Lisbon. She meets and old school friend, Freda Oliveiros, on the flight and they room together in Lisbon. Vicky is the object of interest of several people, including pushy salesman Curt Jaeger. Simon arrives and tries to convince her to accept his help and protection. Vicky, being skeptical, rejects all offers of help and seeks the object by herself; taking her to a deserted cemetery in the middle of the night.
Review: This is a different Saint story that the ones from his prime, it is more a spy novel. There are no appearances by Patricia Holm, Hoppy Uniatz, or even the Hirondel.
The story is both written and set in 1970 when there are still plenty of WWII veterans around, and Vicky has just turned 25 (although at one point she is described as 21, a continuity error). Simon is using airplanes and a rented Volkswagen beetle to get around, a definite step down from his famous Hirondel of the 1930's.
It starts off slowly with Vicky taking her first airplane trip and meeting stewardess friend Freda. As the two travel, it takes on a Nancy Drew-like adventure for a while.
We are not told too much of the origin of the valuable object (which I won't reveal here), but it is puzzling the Russians are after it - since they were allies in World War II, not enemies.
The location of the hiding place of the valuable object is pretty clever and a good choice if you want to stash something securely for decades. Overall, an enjoyable spy thriller.
No comments:
Post a Comment