Fans of the Saint who were waiting for Charteris’ next book would have been surprised — and delighted — by the appearance of a full-length Saint story in 1964, called Vendetta for the Saint. Simon Templar is no longer lounging round holiday resorts, gently double-crossing the scammers and con artists as he has been doing in previous short stories. Instead, this straightforward action-packed adventure finds him taking on the Mafia in Sicily.

However, although Leslie Charteris’ name is on the cover, the book was written by Harry Harrison, noted sci-fi author. Charteris seems to have acted as editor and final decision maker, and the style is a faithful reproduction of the more action-oriented Saint books from the 1930s and 1940s.

Harrison explains in an interview that Charteris didn’t like Italy, but he did, so thought it was a good reason to set a novel there:

I went back and read all the Saint books I could lay my hands on. I’d always liked them. And you’ll do anything for a job of work! I went through and made a list of all the clichés – his ‘teak brown fist’, his ‘mahogany fist’ – I got to know all the phrases so well that the biggest job – or the craft – was to write the thing without making it a parody. I mean, at the beginning it was a parody, and I had to pull myself back. He [Leslie Charteris] didn’t change much of it at all, if a word. He added a paragraph or two to a chapter, but I don’t remember him changing much. – What did Leslie Charteris add? There is one chapter, or part of a chapter – been years since I read it – where The Saint drives to a restaurant and back: slows the story down completely. I did not write that! Leslie put it in as a favour to a friend who owns the restaurant.

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