''Catch the Saint'' is a collection of two mystery
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...
s by
Fleming Lee, based upon stories by
Norman Worker continuing the adventures of the sleuth
Simon Templar a.k.a. "The Saint", created by
Leslie Charteris.
Following usual practice at this point in the series, the front cover credits Charteris, although Lee and Worker receive interior title page credit; Charteris served in an editorial capacity. Some editions misspell the author's name "Flemming Lee."
This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1975 by
, followed by an American edition by
The Crime Club.
Charteris, in his foreword to this volume, defines ''Catch the Saint'' as an experiment in trying to return Simon Templar to his roots in 1930s mystery fiction. While recent Saint novellas and novels published since 1968 had taken place in contemporary times and had been either adaptations of teleplays from the 1962–69 TV series, ''
The Saint'', or based upon storylines from the ''Saint''
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
, the two stories in ''Catch the Saint'' were original works said to take place prior to the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. This makes ''Catch the Saint'' the first original (non-adapted) Saint stories to be published since 1964's ''
Vendetta for the Saint''.
These were the last Simon Templar novellas to be written by Fleming Lee.
Stories
The book consisted of the following stories:
#The Masterpiece Merchant
#The Adoring Socialite
References
1975 books
Simon Templar books
American novellas
The Crime Club books
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