Leslie Charteris was born in 1907 and by 1928 was struggling to make a living as an author. He had had a few short stories and two books published with moderate success when he tried a third book starring a new hero.
The world met the Tiger in June 1928. The story introduced an athletic 27-year old, Simon Templar, who lived in a converted Devon pill-box near the Devon village of Newcombe with his manservant Orace. Partly because of his initials, he had acquired the nickname Saint some eight years earlier, although we have never known how. Leslie was later to complain that it had been a mistake to invent a lead character older than himself, the author. He had probably used January the 1st 1900 as the Saint's birthday.
Simon visited Newcombe because the Confederate Bank of America has offered a 20% reward for the return of stolen gold bullion, and through his underworld contacts Simon has heard that it is there.
Simon meets a local Ward of Court, Patricia Holm, and falls in love. He later meets the eponymous Tiger and also Detective Inspector Carn, who is on the trail of a missing million dollars.
Needless to say, the Saint beards the Tiger in his den and appropriates the loot, sailing off into the sunset to collect his reward.
Leslie Charteris was to write two more books with different heroes before he decided to concentrate on one to save brain work and chose Simon. When he wrote this story, he had not decided this, and Simon freely announced to all and sundry, including Carn, that he was known as the Saint. This created an anomaly in later books because then he became a mysterious unknown entity who left a drawing of a stickman with a halo at the scenes of his crimes.
Although Patricia and Orace were later to share many of his adventures, Inspector Carn did not as Leslie introduced Chief Inspector Teal instead. Rather confusingly for viewers, in the 1941 movie The Saint Meets the Tiger starring Hugh Sinclair, the Saint was already a famous celebrity and he was joined by Teal who knew him well.
Everybody knows the stickman with the halo, famously invented by Leslie which does not actually make an appearance in this book. Not everybody knows that another invention is his which does make a first appearance in this book - the saying 'as the actress said to the bishop'.
This book certainly has some flaws due to inexperience and includes some very dated slang but is worth reading simply because it it the first of a well-loved series. That said, it's not easy to find a cheap copy because in 1980, Leslie allowed it to be republished against his better judgment as he was a bit ashamed of it, but then forbade it from ever being published again so buyers are chasing a finite number.
You can find out everything about the Saint books of Leslie Charteris at http://www.simontemplar.info where you can purchase a CDROM biography with over 200 pages stuffed full of pictures of Saint books cover art. There are hundreds of Saint books and other items for sale there.
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