The Saint Returns!
Exciting news has just been passed my way; Americans no longer have to scour the dark and musky stacks of second-hand books shops to find deteriorating copies of Leslie Charteris’ master prose on Simon Templar, The Saint. Side note: New York City second-handers are a complete no go on any Charteris classics. I’ve been to plenty and come up empty handed every time. It’s become second nature for me to go directly to the ‘Cha’ portion of mystery section of any bookshop I go to, only to repeatedly be disappointed. Second side note: surprisingly, the American repository of second-hand Saint books is actually Renaissance Books in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Mitchell International Airport. Who knew! Every time I pass through there, my ‘Cha’ search is always rewarded with not just one or two random copies but nearly a dozen! But I’m getting off topic.
Through our saintly friend, Ian Diskerson, sorry Dickerson, I’ve recently learned that 49 classic adventures penned by Leslie Charteris will be back on American bookshelves this summer. They will be released, by publishers Thomas & Mercer, in two batches: Enter The Saint through The Saint Steps In will be released on June 24th, with the remaining titles, The Saint on Guard through Salvage for the Saint to follow on July 29th. Sadly, Charteris’ first novel, Meet the Tiger, will not be included. Those who can’t wait till the summer or are more partial to ebooks, personally I hate the bloody things, you can head over to Amazon and download all theses novels right now!
This is exciting news, mostly because it will be great for us older Saint fans to have proper copies of the novels that don’t nearly fall apart in our hands when we go to read and re-read them. But more importantly, it will be interesting to see what fan base springs up in new readership here in the States. I know I’m not the youngest Saint Fan out there. God willing, with enough momentum, we may actually get that Saint television or hulu or netflix show we’ve eagerly been waiting.
So come June 24th, don’t forget to run out and buy up as many copies as you can! Or it will be back to the second hand death traps for you!
The World Needs A Saint.
(Source: Ian Dickerson, Author of The Saint on TV, and active consultant on all things Saintly. Images Courtesy of Thomas & Mercer)
