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:
“I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors as readily as any way.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)