The Saint in Pursuit is the title of a 1970 mystery novel featuring the character of Simon Templar

Simon Templar

Simon Templar is a British fictional character known as The Saint featured in a long-running series of books by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris’s...

, alias "The Saint". The novel is credited to Leslie Charteris

Leslie Charteris

Leslie Charteris , born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, was a half-Chinese, half English author of primarily mystery fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint."-Early life:Charteris was born to a Chinese father...

, who created the Saint in 1928, but the book was actually authored by Fleming Lee and is adapted from a comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 story by Charteris http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/charteri.htm. Charteris served in an editorial capacity on the adaptation.

The book was first published in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by The Crime Club

The Crime Club

The Crime Club was an imprint of the Doubleday publishing company, which later spawned a 1946-47 anthology radio series.Many classic and popular works of detective and mystery fiction had their first U.S. editions published via the Crime Club, including all 50 books of The Saint by Leslie Charteris...

 in 1970, and in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by Hodder and Stoughton the same year. The book was actually written a couple of years earlier, and according to Saint historian Burl Barer

Burl Barer

Burl Barer is an American author and literary historian. He is best known for his fiction and non-fiction writings about the character Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint".-The Saint:...

 had been written by Lee as a replacement for Bet on the Saint

Bet on the Saint

Bet on the Saint is the title of an unpublished novel by Fleming Lee , featuring the character of criminal-turned-detective Simon Templar who had been created by Charteris in 1928....

, another comic strip novelization that had been rejected for publication.