Stories
The book consisted of the following stories, which are standalone adventures although the third story makes reference to the first two:
- Arizona - Templar travels to the American West in pursuit of a Nazi scientist who plans to take over a ranch in order to mine the mercury located beneath, with the mineral destined for German munitions.
- Palm Springs - An alcoholic millionarie begins receiving death threats after he helps police track down (and kill) a gangster. He hires Templar to "guard his body" which soon threatens to become a literal instruction. Meanwhile, Templar finds himself distracted by the millionaire's trio of live-in girlfriends. This story describes a character reading a mystery novel published by The Crime Club, American publishers of the Saint books and ends with a metafictional reference to the Saint book series itself, as well as the Hays Production Code, a possible reference to the fact this story is a novelization of a film story treatment (see below).
- Hollywood - As word spreads of his recent adventures in Arizona and Palm Springs, Templar receives an offer to star in a motion picture about his life, spearheaded by a mobster-turned-movie producer. But when the producer is murdered, Templar finds himself playing another role - that of detective.
Some editions, such as the 1948 printing by Avon Books, omit the World War II-era story "Arizona", although references to it remain in "Hollywood".
Read more about this topic: The Saint Goes West
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them.
Still, you can’t listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Television programming for children need not be saccharine or insipid in order to give to violence its proper balance in the scheme of things.... But as an endless diet for the sake of excitement and sensation in stories whose plots are vehicles for killing and torture and little more, it is not healthy for young children. Unfamiliar as yet with the full story of human response, they are being misled when they are offered perversion before they have fully learned what is sound.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because—despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content—these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)