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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".
                                            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 -- e.g. he likes to sing little made-up songs; he 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: he's a man 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.

Throughout I suspected he was going to be reformed
by the love of a good woman before the novel's end.

     SPOILERS

But no: they went for the "he's no crook,
he's just been working undercover all       Funny, early on I wondered if that
this time" happy ending.                    might be the idea, 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 of slowly
         evolving popular trash...

                                   BLAZING

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