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melissa_who_reads's review against another edition
2.0
I first read the Saint at my grandparents' house - my grandfather also enjoyed reading mysteries (though a different type than I usually read) and I am sure that I first read The Saint in books that belonged to him. I enjoyed them as a teenager, and these stories are about what I remember: though I do not remember reading these particular stories before. These are from very early on in the Sant's career - and it shows some, the character is not as formed as it would be later. I also learned that Leslie Charteris was of Chinese-English descent, his father being a Chinese doctor and his mother an Englishwoman, and he was brought up in Singapore and later England. As such, he was affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act, and not allowed to apply for citizenship in the US until (according to Wikipedia) an Act of Congress granted him and his daughter citizenship. The character of the Saint, interestingly, is of a man who has little to no background - as is pointed out, he doesn't get out of his exploits by appealing to mysterious elite relatives or connections: such connections as he has are decidedly middle-class and plebeian.
nini_f's review against another edition
4.0
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. As a fan of traditional mystery/crime fiction I had a felling I would like the Saint and I was right. The saint character reminded me of Campion however a much more polished and morally ambiguous version. Not generally being a fan of short stories I wondered how these three would fit together, Charteris has that rare talent of making a small cast of familiar characters exciting and almost predictable at the same time. I will be reading more of the Saint series if only to learn more about Teals chewing gum habit.
smcleish's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in October 1999.
Like so many of the Saint series, Alias the Saint contains three disconnected stories of the length Charteris found most pleasant to write. The book is from the early period when he was churning out the stories at an incredible speed, particularly given their quality. In this collection, we have the story in which Simon Templar first uses his favourite alias of Sebastian Tombs (chosen to annoy Chief Inspector Teal), a locked room mystery, and a complex plot revolving around a kidnapped (beautiful, female) chemist rescued by Templar.
The first story is the best, having a lot of humour and a twist. The middle one gets a bit bogged down, and I found the last one a little far-fetched. But there's still more in the Saint of the thirties than in most other thrillers of any decade, even when the stories are not Charteris' best.
Like so many of the Saint series, Alias the Saint contains three disconnected stories of the length Charteris found most pleasant to write. The book is from the early period when he was churning out the stories at an incredible speed, particularly given their quality. In this collection, we have the story in which Simon Templar first uses his favourite alias of Sebastian Tombs (chosen to annoy Chief Inspector Teal), a locked room mystery, and a complex plot revolving around a kidnapped (beautiful, female) chemist rescued by Templar.
The first story is the best, having a lot of humour and a twist. The middle one gets a bit bogged down, and I found the last one a little far-fetched. But there's still more in the Saint of the thirties than in most other thrillers of any decade, even when the stories are not Charteris' best.
tony's review
2.0
This one was quite a struggle to get through. Very little of the traditional Saint-ly charm is in evidence here, doubtless because, as I wish I'd known in advance, these aren't really Saint stories at all, but thinly repurposed early Charteris tales with the character names substituted later — or, in the case of “The National Debt” (aka “The Secret of Beacon Inn”), not even so much substituted as having the lead character, Rameses Smith, simply turned into an alias for Templar. The first, “The Story of a Dead Man” at least has a few positive glimpses of what was to come later, but in general these are all rather poor. ★☆
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