''The Saint on Guard'' is a collection of two mystery

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

s by

Leslie Charteris Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter.The Crime Club ''The Crime Club'' was an imprint of the Doubleday publishing company, which later spawned a 1946-47 anthology radio series, and a 1937-1939 film series. Literature Many classic and popular works of detective and mystery fiction had their fir ...

, and in the United Kingdom in 1945 by

Hodder and Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher ...

. This book continues the adventures of Charteris' creation,

Simon Templar ''The Saint'' is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books unt ...

, alias The Saint, and features the last of the Saint's

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

-themed adventures that had begun with ''

The Saint in Miami ''The Saint in Miami'' is the title of a mystery novel by Leslie Charteris featuring his creation, Simon Templar, alias The Saint. As with an earlier release, '' Follow the Saint'', the order of publication for this book was changed. Instead of b ...

''. Both stories had previously been serialized in magazines in 1942 and 1943. The two novellas featured in this book were also published individually by some publishers. "The Black Market" was published as ''The Saint on Guard'' by

Avon Books Avon Publications is one of the leading publishers of romance fiction. At Avon's initial stages, it was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. The shift in content occurred in the early 1970s with multiple Avon romance titles reach ...

in the 1950, while "The Sizzling Saboteur" was published as ''The Saint and the Sizzling Saboteur'' by Avon and by Charter Books in the 1980s.

Stories

The book consisted of the following stories: #The Black Market - When a shipment of

iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of ...

needed for the production of Allied weapons and equipment is hijacked and put on the

black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...

, Templar hatches a scheme to recover the goods, supported by his shady US intelligence contacts and much to the chagrin of

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

Inspector Fernack. But when one of his prime leads is murdered, Templar finds himself framed for the crime. #The Sizzling Saboteur - The Saint travels to

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galvesto ...

in pursuit of a man who has been sabotaging weapons factories, but when his quarry turns up burned to crisp, he has to contend with both the local police, a trio of mysterious men behind the sabotage, and a beautiful Russian. The story includes an element of

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...

as the name Leslie Charteris is mentioned within the story.

Television adaptation

Both stories in this collection were adapted as episodes of the TV series ''

The Saint The Saint may refer to: Fiction * Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint", the protagonist of a book series by Leslie Charteris and subsequent adaptations: ** ''The Saint'' (film series) (1938–43), starring Louis Hayward, George Sanders an ...

''. ''The Sizzling Saboteur'' was retitled ''The Fellow Traveller'' and first was broadcast as the first episode of the second series on 19 September 1963. ''The Black Market'' was retitled ''The Rough Diamonds'' and was broadcast on 21 November 1963, also as part of the second series. 1944 short story collections Simon Templar books Short story collections by Leslie Charteris Novels set during World War II The Crime Club books {{1940s-mystery-novel-stub