The Last Hero (The Saint)

1930 novel by Leslie Charteris

The Last Hero is the title of a thriller novel by Leslie Charteris that was first published in the United Kingdom in May 1930 by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States in November 1930 by The Crime Club. The story initially appeared in The Thriller, a British magazine, in 1929. Because of this somewhat convoluted publishing history, The Last Hero is occasionally cited as the second volume of adventures featuring the crime busting antihero Simon Templar, alias The Saint, predating Enter the Saint. In fact, according to Charteris himself, it was the third book of the series. This is supported by references to the events of Enter the Saint within the novel.

The book is also known by its later republication title The Saint Closes the Case, which was first used in 1950. The modified title The Saint and the Last Hero is also often used (somewhat bizarrely, since the last hero — so called by Vargan — is the Saint himself). Other alternative titles include The Creeping Death and Sudden Death.

In a foreword to the 1964 Hodder Paperback edition of Featuring the Saint, Charteris admits to "in a few cases" succumbing to the temptation of updating his earliest Saint stories. One such example occurs in the 1963 Hodder Paperback edition of The Saint Closes the Case where references to Mussolini and the League of Nations are changed to Khrushchev (misspelled "Kruschev") and the United Nations.

Although the novel itself has yet to be adapted on film, the 2013 television pilot The Saint, released in 2017, featured Rayt Marius as its villain. It was also adopted for radio by the BBC in 1995.