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The Saint : The Rayt Marius omnibus VOL 2

Leslie Charteris

The Saint is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. He has as his signature a logo–the stick figure of a man with a halo over his head, that later became the calling card of his Robin Hood–like anti-hero escapades.

Getaway sees The Saint visiting Innsbruck with their editor friend, Monty Hayward (making his first appearance in the series). The trio are out for a late-night walk when they see a man being attacked by thugs. They save the man, but the victim is strangely ungrateful, forcing Templar to knock him out, too. Intrigued by the man's attitude–as well as by a steel box attached to his wrist, Templar decides to take the unconscious man back to his hotel room. Before long, however, the man is stabbed to death in Templar's bed and Templar finds himself in yet another encounter with Prince Rudolf–one of the men responsible for the death of his friend Norman Kent in The Last Hero.

In 'The Simon Templar Foundation' The Saint finds himself in possession of a black book containing secrets related to war profiteering by several prominent Englishmen.

Leslie Charteris

Leslie Charteris was born in Singapore on 12 May, 1907. With his mother and brother, he moved to England, in 1919, and attended Rossall School in Lancashire before moving on to Cambridge University to study law. His studies there came to a halt when a publisher accepted his first novel. His third book, entitled Meet the Tiger!, was written when he was twenty years old and published in September 1928. It introduced the world to Simon Templar, aka the Saint.

He continued to write about the Saint until 1983 when the last book, Salvage for the Saint, was published. The books, which have been translated into over thirty languages, number nearly a hundred and have sold over 40 million copies around the world. They've inspired, to date, fifteen feature films, three TV series, ten radio series, and a comic strip that was written by Charteris and syndicated around the world for over a decade. He enjoyed travelling but settled for long periods in Hollywood, Florida, and finally in Surrey, England. He was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger by the Crime Writers' Association, in 1992, in recognition of a lifetime of achievement. He died the following year.

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