Trust the Saint by Leslie Charteris

     Remember the TV show “The Saint” with Roger Moore? Or perhaps you remember the rather cheesy 90s movie “The Saint” with Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue? Ah, yes. Well, here’s what those are all based on.Well, one of the books, anyway--there were quite a few!

     This is a series of short stories about our hero Simon Templar (the Saint)—a Robin Hood-type of guy who will go to any lengths--legal or not--to see that justice is done. The stories are highly entertaining and the writing is just as fun. My daughter and I winced and giggled over paragraphs like this one: “She was one of those unlucky young females who seem to have been created solely to boost the morale of their nearest competitors. Beside her, no other creature in a skirt could have felt hopeless. It might be kinder not to detail her specifications, but simply to say that for every apparently ultimate disaster in feminine architecture there must be something worse; and she was it.” Wow. Ouch. Politically correct much? Not in this book. Still, it was full of entertaining stories, clever writing and the absolute smoothness of our hero, the Saint. Fun. 

Bad language: I don’t think so.
Sex: None. Of course, we all know that the Saint could have his way with any woman, but there’s none of that in this book, thankfully.