User Reviews

Simon Templar is sunning himself in The Bahamas. At the same time Lida Verity finds that her goose is cooked.

She has been blackmailed. Someone took uncompromising photos of her and she does not want her husband to find out about them.

Lida goes off to see Maurice Kerr (Peter Bowles) the man who might be in the photos with Lida. He seems to be immediately unsavoury. Maurice already has another floozie in his home.

Lida flees to a nightclub where she has to deliver a bracelet. In the club is a shady photographer called Peanut who wears thick glasses.

Simon Templar is persuaded by Joan Wingate, Lida's sister to help out. By the time The Saint arrives at the club. Lida is shot dead, it looks like suicide but The Saint is not convinced.

Maybe Maurice Kerr, Peanut or the manager of the nightclub was the blackmailer. A very helpful Irishman assists Simon Templar but at each turn they come across a dead end.

There are a few immediate suspects but even then the reveal of the baddie was not a total surprise. A competent but uninspiring episode.

LIDA is another small-scale Saint story with an exotic setting, this time in the Bahamas. It's essentially an excuse for the attractive female co-stars to wander around in their tight-fitting bikinis, looking good all the while. There's a minor blackmail plot which eventually leads to murder, and an early role for '70s TV stalwart Peter Bowles whose character is guessable from his very first scene. The episode is notable for Moore's warm charm and refusal to take anything too seriously and the commendable performances from the guest actresses. It was also written by the dependable Terry Nation, whose name needs no explanation for British TV viewers.

Jamaica. A beautiful, wealthy young lady shoots herself on the patio of a local watering hole. Simon Templar wonders if it's murder. And, naturally, he runs afoul of the local constabulary.

The episode presents a wide range of unsavory suspects (including Peter Bowles, Marne Mairland and a particularly repulsive Aubrey Morris).

Unfortunately, the episode is practically devoid of humor (unless you consider Morris' debility funny). Moore has to pull off what amounts to a straight mystery with a straight face. He's not at his best as Hercule Poirot.

It is, of course, Jamaica by way of the studio.