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THE_WHITE_RIDER

                                 November 10, 2004

Charteris published his first novel at the age
of 20, in 1927: "X Esquire", about a police
detective named Bill Kennedy.

Right afterwards he wrote "Meet the Tiger"
(1927), the first novel about his well known
character "The Saint".
                                            THE_NAME_OF_THE_SAINT

And right after that, he
published a third novel named
"The White Rider" (1928).

"The White Rider" nominally features this Bill Kennedy
character, but there is also a prominent Saint-like
character named "Peter Lestrange".  He engages in the same
sort of British burbling nonsense that the Saint does in the
early books, he likes to sing little songs, and is yet
another outlaw adventurer who enganges in many daring feats
of violence and automotive moving violations.  And if
anything he cuts an even more unsavory figure than the
Saint's, with a prison record, and a history of dope
dealing.  In essence, he's a more nasty character and hence
seems a little more... I hesitate to say "realistic", but
let's say "realistic" for now.


He is, I suspect, about to be reformed by the
love of a good woman before the novel's end.
Let's see how it turns out, eh?

     SPOILERS

(Ah, no: they went for the "he's no crook,
he's just been working undercover all this
time" happy ending... funny, early on I
thought they might do that, but it just didn't
seem plausible.  I mean: a *year* in prison as
a plant?)


A funny detail: Lestrange carries an
automatic strapped to a wrist.

The Saint (in the early days) goes with
daggers strapped to his wrists.


         Ah, the many strange small mutations that the
         slowly evolving popular trash undergoes...

                                   BLAZING

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