The Holy Terror (The Saint)

The Holy Terror
also The Saint vs. Scotland Yard

1938 edition
Author	Leslie Charteris
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	The Saint
Genre	Mystery
Publisher	Hodder and Stoughton
Publication date	1932
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded by	She Was a Lady
Followed by	Getaway

The Holy Terror is a collection of three mystery novellas by Leslie Charteris, first published in the United Kingdom in May 1932 by Hodder and Stoughton. This was the eighth book to feature the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". When published in the United States for the first time, in September 1932, the title was changed to The Saint vs. Scotland Yard.

The three stories in the book are loosely interconnected and take place over the course of roughly nine months, according to the text. This book is notable for bringing Patricia Holm back into the forefront. The character, depicted as Templar's on again-off again girlfriend since the first book in the series, Meet - The Tiger!, had been virtually relegated to cameo appearance status after the novel The Last Hero and had been absent from a number of stories and novels since. Here she becomes an active participant in Templar's schemes once again. Charteris does not obscure the clear implication that the unmarried Templar and Holm are living together at the time of these stories—something that is commonplace today but was rare in popular fiction in the early 1930s.

The book consisted of the following stories, labelled as "Part One", "Part Two", and "Part Three".

Some editions of this book include an introduction, "Between Ourselves", in which Charteris discusses the philosophy of The Saint, promising that despite recent negative reviews in some publications, he had no intention of retiring from writing about Simon Templar (indeed, Charteris would continue to write stories about the character until the early 1960s, after which he would serve in an editorial capacity on further Saint adventures up until 1983).

"The Million Pound Day" formed the basis for the 1939 film, The Saint in London which starred George Sanders as Templar. (This should not be confused with the Simon Templar book The Misfortunes of Mr. Teal, which was also published under the title The Saint in London.) In addition, the plot point in "The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal" in which Templar strives to top up his bank account and retire was adapted for the 1997 film version of The Saint.