Sax Rohmer's The Green Eyes of Bâst

The Green Eyes of Bâst is a 1920 potboiler by Sax Rohmer. It’s a lurid mystery which may or may not deal with supernatural happenings.

It begins with a policeman receiving an odd instruction to visit the Red House to check that the garage has been locked properly. What’s odd is that everyone knows that the Red House has lain empty for some considerable time. Inside the garage is a large packing case marked with the design of a cat-like figure.

The narrator, a journalist named Addison, had accompanied the constable on his strange errand. And on that same night he had the impression of being followed by a figure that seemed both female and perhaps slight feline. What struck him most were the startling green eyes.

Shortly afterwards the body of Sir Marcus Coverly is found at the docks, in that very packing case.

A short time before Addison had been involved in a romantic triangle involving a pretty actress named Isobel and Eric Coverly, brother of the late Sir Marcus.

It will soon become apparent that another romantic triangle had formed, involving Isobel and the two brothers. Also, Eric Coverly has now inherited the baronetcy.

Inspector Gatton of Scotland Yard being an old friend our narrator is asked to consult, unofficially, on the case.

A significant clue appears to be a cat figurine. It is fact a representation of the Egyptian cat-goddess Bâst. There are other possible connections to Egypt. There’s a second rather striking and mysterious woman mixed up in the case. There’s a possibly sinister doctor, who seems to have an interest in things Egyptian.

There was a third Coverly brother, Roger, now deceased. His mother has possession of the family estate which will now eventually pass to Eric Coverly.

Quite a few of the characters have some connection to Egypt.

There’s a sprawling ancient house, once an abbey, now inhabited by Roger Coverly’s mother. And perhaps by a mysterious doctor. He may be a mad scientist but he is a student of the occult as well as being a student of science and those two interests can overlap in disturbing ways.

Madness of various kinds might be involved.

This could be simply a story of a family feud over an inheritance, but it could be something much stranger. There is evidence that points to unimaginable horrors and creatures that are neither human nor non-human. With Sax Rohmer you never know. You might get an entirely rational explanation at the end. Or you might get an explanation that challenges our entire understanding of the natural world. And in this case the weirdness might not necessarily be the kind of weirdness we’re expecting.

In this tale he demonstrates great skill in feeding us just enough hints of serious weirdness to keep us interested but he has no intention of revealing the truth until the end.

This is Sax Rohmer at the top of his game. Very highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed many of Sax Rohmer’s books. The Bride of Fu Manchu and The Mask of Fu Manchu are fine mid-period Fu Manchu books. The Dream Detective is a terrific collection of clever occult detective stories. The Leopard Couch and Brood of the Witch-Queen are typical of his excellent gothic horror fiction/weird fiction. The Sins of Sumuru introduces us to his final creation, the glamorous sexy female diabolical criminal mastermind Sumuru. Sumuru is a diabolical criminal mastermind with a genuinely objective in mind.

Sax Rohmer's She Who Sleeps

There was much much more to Sax Rohmer than the Fu Manchu stories.

Stark House have issued two Sax Rohmer novels written at almost exactly the same time (the late 1920s) in a two-novel paperback. They give an idea of his ability to jump from genre to genre. Moon of Madness (published in 1927) is a straightforward spy thriller and I have to say that conventional spy tales were not his forte. She Who Sleeps (dating from 1928) is much more interesting and much more successful. He’s in more congenial territory here - this is both weird fiction and an occult thriller.

A rich young man named Barry Cumberland, lost in a storm, crashes his car after catching a glimpse of an Egyptian princess on a balcony. Of course she can’t be a real Egyptian princess, not in 1920s New York. He tries to find her but can’t. He can’t even find the place where his car accident occurred.

His fabulously wealthy father John Cumberland is a keen Egyptologist who has come into possession of a papyrus that concerns an Egyptian princess, Zalithea. It contains a formula and a ritual. Zalithea is She Who Sleeps. In fact she is She Who Sleeps and Will Awaken. She lies in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings but with the formula and the ritual she can be revived, after sleeping for 3,200 years.

John Cumberland is convinced that the papyrus is genuine. He was has consulted various experts. They agree that it really is 3,200 years old. Is it possible that Zalithea still lives?

John Cumberland naturally organises an expedition, with assistance from several Egyptologists including the slightly mysterious Danbazzar. The real purpose of the expedition will have to be kept secret. If all goes as planned they will have in their possession a living, breathing 3,200-year-old Egyptian princess which could cause all manner of complications with the authorities in Egypt.

Barry Cumberland has another obsession - that girl he saw on the balcony. He suspects that she is Zalithea’s double, or a vision of Zalithea, or Zalithea’s ghost. His ideas on this subject are muddled but he is sure there is a connection.

And of course when the sarcophagus is finally opened Barry does find himself gazing into the face of the same girl.

The tomb had escaped the notice of tomb robbers and had lain untouched and undiscovered for more than three millennia. Zalithea cannot possibly be awakened. Or can she?

Compared to Moon of Madness this is not only subject matter much more ideally suited for Rohmer it’s also the sort of strange mysterious uncanny story that seemed to make Rohmer’s writing suddenly become a lot more lively. And the sense of breathless excitement that Rohmer tried to aim for works more successfully.

This is an occult thriller but it’s also a love story, a love story with its roots in the distant past.

These are things that appeal to me and I love anything to do with ancient Egypt so this novel really is right up my alley. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed many of Sax Rohmer’s books. The Bride of Fu Manchu and The Mask of Fu Manchu are fine Fu Manchu books. The Dream Detective is a splendid collection of occult detective stories. The Leopard Couch and Brood of the Witch-Queen are typical of his excellent gothic horror fiction/weird fiction. The Sins of Sumuru introduces his final creation, the glamorous sexy female diabolical criminal mastermind Sumuru. Sumuru wants to eliminate violence from the world. She accepts that to do so will involve killing a lot of people.

Sax Rohmer's Moon of Madness

Moon of Madness is a 1927 Sax Rohmer thriller.

Sax Rohmer (1883-1959) is best known as the creator of Dr Fu Manchu but he wrote a lot of other books in a number of genres. He wrote some great gothic horror and some fine occult thrillers. He also wrote straightforward spy thrillers such as Moon of Madness.

I like the spy fiction of the 1920s and 1930s because it has a refreshingly different tone compared to the endless Cold War spy thrillers of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

In Moon of Madness the enemy is the communists, the Bolsheviks, but it still has that interwar period flavour. And like so many of the spy novels of that period it features an amateur spy. In fact there are three spies on the side of the good guys. One is a professional, war hero Major O’Shea. The second is the narrator, George Decies. The third is a cute frivolous high-spirited eighteen-year-old girl, Nanette. But they all, even the professional, have that delightful British “muddling through” spirit.

The setting is Madeira, a suitably exotic and neutral locale for a spy thriller. A smooth Portuguese ladies’ man named de Cunha has been romancing Nanette. She should exercise more caution in these matters but she’s young and she wants to have fun. She’s not in love with de Cunha. She has set her sights on Major O’Shea. O’Shea is attracted to Nanette but he’s a man who agonises over moral dilemmas and points of honour and he’s convinced himself that it would be dishonourable to declare his love for the girl. One also suspects that’s just a little given to indulging in noble self-sacrifice.

What’s at stake is a bundle of letters written by a certain royal personage. If they fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks governments could fall, it might even mean a war.

To be honest I don’t think the straightforward spy thriller was Rohmer’s forte. The plot is rather thin. He was at his best when his plots were enlivened by bizarre backgrounds and outlandish setups, such as ongoing struggles with evil geniuses or weird possibly supernatural elements.

The hero-worship towards Major O’Shea displayed by the narrator can get a mite embarrassing. Especially given that O’Shea really doesn’t come across as such a brilliant splendid chap. O’Shea thinks he’s being terribly noble by not declaring his love for Nanette when in fact he’s causing her totally unnecessary emotional pain. And the only reason for his reticence appears to be an over-developed obsession with being virtuous and self-sacrificing. The reader feels like screaming at him to just take the girl in his arms, kiss her and tell her that he loves her. If he’d done that at the beginning a lot of suffering could have been avoided.

O’Shea also seems far from being a super-spy. He makes some elementary mistakes.

Of course the fact that O’Shea doesn’t live up to the narrator’s inflated estimate of him does add a slightly interesting touch.

This is a competent but fairly routine spy thriller. Worth a look, but he wrote so many much better books. Sax Rohmer was a great writer whose work is very much worth seeking out but Moon of Madness is not the best place to start.

I’ve reviewed a lot of Sax Rohmer’s stuff. The Bride of Fu Manchu and The Mask of Fu Manchu are good mid-period Fu Manchu books. The Dream Detective is an excellent collection of occult detective stories. The Leopard Couch and Brood of the Witch-Queen are typical of his excellent gothic horror fiction/weird fiction. The Sins of Sumuru introduces his final creation, the glamorous female diabolical criminal mastermind Sumuru. Sumuru wants to eliminate violence from the world and she doesn’t care how many people she has to kill to achieve her objective.

Sax Rohmer's The Green Spider

There was a lot more to Sax Rohmer than the Fu Manchu books. He wrote detective stories many of which had supernatural elements, or at least suggestions of the supernatural. And he wrote some fine gothic horror. Black Dog Books have collected a varied assortment of his early stories in The Green Spider: and Other Forgotten Tales of Mystery and Suspense.

The Green Spider (written in 1904) begins with a college servant named Jamieson discovering what appears to be a horrific murder. Someone has broken into the laboratory of Professor Brayme-Skepley, wrecked everything and murdered the professor. The body however is not there. There is evidence that suggests that the professor was forcibly removed from the premises (either dead or alive) but there is other evidence that suggests that such a thing could not have happened. And there’s the matter of the giant green spider seen by the servant.

The Death of Cyrus Pettigrew involves the sudden death of a man on a train. The only other person in the compartment was Miss Pettigrew, his niece and ward. The doctor who examines the body has no doubt that Cyrus Pettigrew was poisoned but the means by which the poison was administered remains mysterious. This is an impossible crime story, and a pretty good one.

The Mystery of the Marsh Hole dates from 1905 and is a disappointing and contrived story of a disappearance in the marshes.

The Sedgley Abbey Tragedies from 1909 begins with an escape from a lunatic asylum. Soon afterwards a body is found in an abbey moat. The explanation is clear-cut and the case is closed and the drama is over. Except that more bodies turn up in the moat. A good story with some fine twists.

The Mysterious Mummy is an OK very early story (from 1903) about odd happenings in a museum. A mummy is there, and then it isn’t there.

The McVillin (from 1905) concerns a well-born but impoverished Irish officer, Colonel McVillin. In fact he’s now a penniless rogue and adventurer. He finds himself involved in an affair of honour although he has no idea what it is all about. Something about a young lady being forced into a marriage against her will. McVillin will have to fight the duel anyway. A delightfully quirky mix of cynicism, romanticism and mystery. Splendid stuff.

Who Was the Rajah? dates from 1906. A masked ball onboard a steamer ends in piracy on the high seas. A very clever and witty caper story.

The Secret of Holm Peel, published in 1912, takes place on the Isle of Man. There’s a castle that once belonged to the king and a family secret that must be kept. There are secret passageways and phantom dogs. Good fun.

The Dyke Grange Mystery, from 1922, is a puzzle-plot mystery with some exotic touches. Private detective Paul Harley and Inspector Wessex are investigating the murder of a dissipated nobleman. An unusual dagger of Egyptian origin sees to be an important clue. Along with an assortment of cigarette stubs. An entertaining tale.

The Haunting of Low Fennel dates from 1920 and is an unusual and excellent haunted house tale. Major Dale would like to sell Low Fennel, an old house that has been in the family for centuries and has always had an evil reputation. He turns to ghost-hunter Addison for help. I’m not going to risk even the mildest spoiler but this is definitely not a run-of-the-mill haunted house story.

The Blue Monkey was published in 1920. A man is on his way home, on a lonely path through the moors. He is carrying a parcel - a blue porcelain monkey he has just purchased. The man is found dead. He has been strangled. No mystery there, but the only tracks leading from the crime scene seem to belong to a small child. A good solid mystery.

The Zayat Kiss was written in 1912. It’s extremely important since it arks the first appearance of Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu.

The Six Gates of Joyful Wisdom dates from 1915 and is an excerpt from The Return of Fu Manchu.

The Green Spider is a fine collection and is highly recommended.

More of Rohmer’s early short stories can be found in another Black Dog Books volume, The Leopard Couch and Other Stories of the Fantastic and Supernatural, which is also recommended. Also very worth getting hold of is The Dream Detective, a very fine collection of occult detective tales. And there’s some great fiendish occult wickedness in Brood of the Witch-Queen.

Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu

President Fu Manchu was the eighth of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. It appeared in 1936 and it marks an interesting departure for the series. Dr Fu Manchu has now turned his attention to American politics.

The date of publication is significant. The United States was still in the grip of the Great Depression and political instability seemed like a possibility. There had certainly been waves of political instability throughout the world since the Bolshevik Revolution and the Depression had made things even more dangerously unsettled. There were Hollywood movies like Gabriel Over the White House predicting a fascist takeover. Communism was gaining ground in most western countries. So Rohmer’s idea that Fu Manchu might see an opportunity for power was perhaps not quite so far-fetched as it seems today.

A priest who is a popular broadcaster is suddenly cut off in the middle of a broadcast. He was about to tell the American people something terribly important, warn them of some great danger. And now he cannot for the life of him remember what it was. The manuscript for the broadcast has been stolen as well. Federal agents now have the priest under guard in an old tower. Worse is to come - presidential candidate Dr Orwin Prescott has disappeared. That leaves only one viable candidate, Harvey Bragg. Federal Officer 56 knows that  Harvey Bragg is a mere puppet. If he is elected the real power will be in the hands of a sinister man in the shadows and Federal Officer 56 knows the identity of that man in the shadows.

Federal Officer 56 has been given sweeping powers, slightly surprising given that he is not an American. In the current crisis however he has been recognised as the only man who can save the situation. He is cagey about his identity although he claims that his name is Smith. The alert reader who is a keen fan of the Fu Manchu books will have a pretty shrewd idea of the identity of this Englishman named Smith.

Fu Manchu’s plan is even more devious than initial appearances would suggest. It looks like Fu Manchu intends Harvey Bragg to be his puppet but the real plan is more subtle. Its also not just about the presidential election. It has been suggested that just as the Roman Republic would appoint a dictator in times of crisis then the present crisis should be dealt with by electing an American dictator.

Dr Fu Manchu has managed to gain control of a large part of the American underworld and indirectly he has control of significant business interests and a grassroots political movement. Combined with his undeniable genius he should now be unstoppable but there’s a complicating factor. Fu Manchu’s American operation is on a vast scale and lavishly funded but it’s been put together in a hurry and it doesn’t work as smoothly as his previous operations in more familiar territory. Also he is dealing with people who are not the kinds of people he is used to dealing with. Many of them are not Asian and do not share his dream of Asian dominance over the West. They serve him for money or because they have been blackmailed or hypnotised but their loyalty cannot be entirely relied upon. This is an uncomfortable situation for Fu Manchu.

Of course Sir Denis Nayland Smith is in unfamiliar territory as well but he has adapted and he has been fortunate to find a thoroughly reliable lieutenant in the person of Marine Captain Mark Hepburn.

There is of course a mysterious dangerous glamorous woman with a slightly exotic air. In fact there are two such women, and Captain Hepburn has fallen for one of them.

There are some of the features you always expect in a Fu Manchu story. There’s the elaborate secret headquarters with the concealed river entrance. In this case it has lots of other surprises as well. And there are some more unusual features, such as a secondary secret headquarters concealed in a skyscraper.

Rohmer was obviously determined to make this a fresh entry in the series and tries very hard to make the American atmosphere effective. It’s the kind of American atmosphere you get from an imaginative writer who knows America from movies and pulp fiction but that just makes it more fun. The stuff about American politics is mostly fanciful although the 1930s was a time when it seemed like almost anything could happen in politics. Rohmer (probably sensibly) doesn’t really take an overt political position. Fu Manchu’s objective is the same as it has always been - to achieve the dominance of eastern over western civilisation. Gaining control of the U.S. is simply a means to this end.

As always in these books it is obvious that Rohmer admires his villain, Fu Manchu, just as much as he admires his hero, Sir Denis Nayland Smith. Fu Manchu is the ultimate expression of the genius of the East (as Rohmer saw things) while Nayland Smith represents the finest virtues of the West. Their struggle is not a struggle between civilisations and barbarism but a struggle between civilisations. Fu Manchu is ruthless but he believes that ruthlessness in such a worthy cause is not only justified but necessary. He is ruthless, but never dishonourable. And in this story as in quite a few other Fu Manchu shows himself to be capable of noble gestures that would be worthy of any hero.

President Fu Manchu is an intriguing attempt to do something slightly different within the formula Rohmer had already perfected and it succeeds pretty well. Like everything Rohmer wrote it’s vastly entertaining. Highly recommended.

Sax Rohmer’s Sinister Madonna

Sinister Madonna was the fifth and last of Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru novels. It appeared in 1956. Sumuru was the second of Rohmer’s great diabolical criminal masterminds.

Sumuru has quite a lot in common with Rohmer’s other great creation, Dr Fu Manchu. Both are geniuses. Both are ruthless. Both are a mortal threat to western civilisation. They are both quite prepared to resort to direct methods but where possible they prefer a more subtle approach. And both have a strong interest in Asiatic history, philosophy and religion.

The most striking resemblance between Rohmer’s two great villains is that both are sincerely convinced that they are on the side of civilisation. To use an unfortunate modern idiom, both would say that they are on the right side of history. Neither can be described as merely evil. Evil yes, but certainly not merely evil.

Sumuru, being a beautiful and highly intelligent women, believes that a world run by beautiful and highly intelligent women would be a perfect world. Violence, misery and ugliness would be banished from the world. Especially ugliness. Sumuru abhors ugliness. She particularly detests ugly women. This will obviously be quite a task and Sumuru accepts that her plan will meet fierce resistance. She is prepared for this. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and she is quite willing to break as many eggs as is necessary. Sumuru is an idealist, and if her ideals require her to commit mass murder she will do so. In fact she has already done so.

Sumuru, known to her follows as Madonna, has her own secret society - the Order of Our Lady. The name suggests a religious underpinning to her ideals. In fact Sumuru draws on various religious and philosophical traditions. She has a number of male henchmen but her principal foot soldiers are the lovely young women of her order who use their beauty and the full array of what were known in 1956 as feminine wiles in order to bend men to Sumuru’s will. 

Sinister Madonna has a plot that is reminiscent of some of his more memorable Fu Manchu tales. Sumuru has for several years been attempting to lay her hands on a fabulous talisman that will bring her immense power and influence throughout the Near East among the devotees of several great religions. This talisman is the Seal of King Solomon, carved almost three thousand years ago from the largest diamond then in existence. 

The Seal has been cunningly hidden and while Sumuru has on several occasions been close to getting her hands on it somehow it seems to keep eluding her. Now she is very close indeed to achieving her goal but she has attracted some unwelcome attention. Most annoyingly she has attracted the attention of an old and dangerous foe, Chief Inspector Gilligan of Scotland Yard.

Sumuru has another enemy, a man who had been an ally, albeit an unwilling one. And Sumuru has perhaps one weakness - a tendency to underrate her enemies.

Sinister Madonna is wonderful entertainment. Highly recommended. 

Like the Fu Manchu books the Sumuru books really need to be read in chronological sequence, starting with The Sins of Sumuru (published in the US as Nude in Mink).

The Trail of Fu Manchu

The Trail of Fu Manchu was the seventh of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels, appearing in 1934. This is a rather different Fu Manchu - this is Fu Manchu at bay. His nemesis Sir Denis Nayland Smith has gained the upper hand. Fu Manchu’s organisation has been seriously weakened and he is in failing health. As Nayland Smith will find out, he is still a formidable adversary.

Dr Fu Manchu has struck back, using the daughter of of Nayland’s Smith’s friend and comrade-in-arms Dr Petrie as the means for his revenge. And Fu Manchu has ambitious plans that may yet restore his powers and his fortunes. He has discovered a secret that eluded the medieval alchemists. In fact, as we will discover, he has discovered several secrets sought by the alchemists.

As so often Nayland Smith is hampered by the necessity to thwart Fu Manchu’s plans without risking innocent lives. He does have a useful ally in the person of the indefatigable Detective Chief Inspector Gallaho, a man of considerable resource.

The story opens with a typical Sax Rohmer flourish - an amazingly life-like statue that turns out to be more life-like than it should be!

This adventure takes place entirely in London although this does not quite mean that Nayland Smith has the home ground advantage. The slums of Limehouse are not exactly congenial territory in which to wage a battle against a Chinese master criminal. The battle will be waged beneath the streets of London in a hidden world of mystery and danger. There are explosions, secret laboratories and there’s much general mayhem.

There is a reason Fu Manchu is the greatest of all fictional diabolical criminal masterminds.  As Fu Manchu himself would doubtless point out he is a criminal merely by necessity, not by inclination. Lacking political power he must make use of whatever methods serve his purpose. And he is not actually evil as such. He has a vision of the future, a world of harmony and order and even beauty. To a westerner like Nayland Smith this ideal world might seem inhuman and even nightmarish but there is no doubting Fu Manchu’s sincerity. He is not a man who delights in destruction for its own sake. Indeed, he is more interested in creating than in destroying. It just happens that in order for Fu Manchu’s world to come into being western civilisation will have to be subjugated.

Sax Rohmer’s theme is the clash of civilisations. Nayland Smith represents the virtues of western civilisation - individualism, initiative, flexibility and respect for freedom. Fu Manchu is the exemplar of a very different civilisation but one with its own virtues - discipline, order and obedience to authority. Both civilisations have their weaknesses. The western world is somewhat chaotic. Fu Manchu’s civilisation is inflexible and tolerates no dissent. It is fundamentally totalitarian.

While Fu Manchu has the greater intellect his followers he has the disadvantage that his followers are little more than automatons. Fu Manchu himself must provide the imagination. Nayland Smith on the other hand has allies rather than followers, men who will risk their lives willingly and who display a certain amount of initiative.

To see Rohmer’s Fu Manchu books as racist is to misunderstand them in a very fundamental manner. Fu Manchu is never portrayed as a representative of an inferior civilisation, merely one which has very different values and priorities. In some ways Fu Manchu represents intellectual attainments that are superior to those of the West. Rohmer certainly believed the two systems were inevitably going to clash, but his views on race were clearly more complex than the usual Yellow Peril idea. 

Fu Manchu’s worldview is not wildly dissimilar to that of Rohmer’s other great diabolical criminal mastermind, Sumuru. Sumuru also dreams of a world of peace, harmony and beauty and her methods of bringing this about are equally totalitarian. The Sumuru novels, beginning with The Sins of Sumuru, are also worth reading. Rohmer’s supernatural fiction (in collections such as The Leopard Couch) and his occult detective stories (The Dream Detective) are also excellent.

Sax Rohmer’s work was immensely varied and always fascinating. The Fu Manchu books do need to be read in sequence, starting with The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu (1913, also published as The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu). The Trail of Fu Manchu is not the best of the series but it’s still enormous fun. Highly recommended.

Sax Rohmer’s The Leopard Couch

While Sax Rohmer’s fame may have been based on his Fu Manchu books he was also a prolific, and extremely good, writer of tales of horror. The Leopard Couch and Other Stories of the Fantastic and Supernatural includes thirteen examples of his weird fiction, mostly from fairly early in his career.

The title story was one of his first published stories, appearing in 1904. Rohmer’s approach was already established. Very little of a concrete nature happens. The supernatural elements are not overt, the author relying instead on atmosphere and suggestion. Does the ancient Egyptian couch, dating from a legendary period before the emergence of the first dynasties, actually have strange and dangerous powers? The experiences of the narrator may be merely the products of an over-active imagination, but then again they may not.

A House Possessed is the story of a house haunted not by ghosts but by fire. On no fewer than seven separate occasions people have lost their lives in the house in mysterious fires, fires that for some unexplained reason are always contained to a single room. In the 16th century an occult practitioner, a follower of Nostradamus, had lived in the house. Strange rumours had circulated about his powers. Could these powers still be active three centuries later? Or could the events of the story be merely bizarre coincidences?

The Haunted Temple concerns an English archaeologist searching for the magical implements of an Egyptian princess notorious for her sorcery and her membership of a forbidden cult. The archaeologist finds himself becoming more and more fascinated by the beautiful Madame de Medici (a character who will reappear in some of Rohmer’s later stories), a woman who seems to know a very great deal about a princess who died several thousand years ago. Rohmer’s gift for elaborately ornate prose and his ability to create an atmosphere both alluring and overwhelming, almost stifling, are shown to good effect in this tale.

Madame de Medici returns in The Red Eye of Vishnu although this time she displays rather different aspects of her character. She is as exotic and alluring as ever but her motives are rather different. The Hand of the White Shiekh is a very effective horror chiller and it is one of several tales in this collection that Rohmer later reworked, in this case under the title The Hand of the Mandarin Quong, with a different setting and slightly different characters. Rohmer altered a number of his earlier stories to give them the touch of the Mysterious Orient which had made the Fu Manchu books so enormously successful.

Late in his career Rohmer would have considerable success with his series of novels about the spectacularly beautiful and spectacularly dangerous female diabolical criminal mastermind Sumuru. It’s clear from many of the stories in this volume that femmes fatales had always fascinated Rohmer and he certainly had the ability to create memorable characters of this type. Rohmer never made the mistake of creating villainesses who were merely villains in skirts - Rohmer’s villainesses are dangerous and exotic and they are also very much women. Their femaleness is the source of their power and their danger and is also the driving force of their ambitions. He could create equally intriguing female characters whose power came from virtue rather than evil or who were at the very least morally ambiguous. In fact Rohmer was always more interested in characters who were driven by motivations that seemed to them to be thoroughly reasonable and even virtuous even if they appeared evil to the world at large.

That Black Cat, In the Valley of the Sorceress and The Curse of a Thousand Kisses all display Rohmer’s fascination with the power of women, a power that can be frightening but not necessarily purely malevolent.

Several of Rohmer’s series characters appear in this volume, including occult detective Moris Klaw (in a very fine tale called The Tragedies in the Greek Room) and private eye Paul Harley.

The ancient world figures prominently in this collection, perhaps not surprisingly in view of the immense popularity of Egyptology in the early 20th century. Archaeologist heroes were very much in tune with the spirit of the times. The power of the past projected into the present was one of his major obsessions and it’s a theme he mines relentlessly and very successfully.

Purple prose was an accepted feature of popular stories of the weird in Rohmer’s heyday and his prose can get very purple indeed. Personally I love overwrought and highly ornamented prose so that’s no problem at all for me. His ability to pile on the atmosphere of the exotic and the mysterious is another major asset as far as I’m concerned. Florid prose is by no means the only asset of these stories. Rohmer’s plotting is skillful and imaginative and he manages to vary the moods of his stories rather wonderfully. The overheated atmosphere can be menacing or it can be seductive and given Rohmer’s fondness for ambiguous villainesses the reader can never be certain if the heroes are being led to bliss or to their doom.

A nicely varied collection of stories by an underrated master of tales of the weird. Highly recommended.

Sax Rohmer's Return of Sumuru

Sax Rohmer made his reputation, and his fortune, with his Fu Manchu books. Fu Manchu is one of fiction’s great villains but Rohmer’s other memorable villain, Sumuru, is every bit as fascinating. Rohmer wrote five Sumuru novels during the 1950s with Return of Sumuru (published in Britain as Sand and Satin) being the fourth.

If Fu Manchu represented the Yellow Peril, the terrifying latent power of the East, then Sumuru represented the equally immense power of woman.

You can always rely on Rohmer to plunge the reader straight into the action, and this novel is no exception. A man inching his way home through a London blanketed in impenetrable fog suddenly notices there is a woman in his car, a woman who was not there before. A very attractive young woman. And then she is gone. But her pursuers are not far behind her.

The man is Dick Carteret and although he saw the woman for only a moment that was enough to plunge him into a terrifying adventure. The woman he saw was Coral Denvers, the daughter of an American millionaire and Sumuru’s latest victim.

Sumuru has many names. The name Sumuru is a legacy of one of her husbands, a Japanese baron now deceased. All of Sumuru’s husbands have been immensely wealthy, and all are deceased. Whether any of them died a natural death is uncertain but unlikely. All have contributed to Sumuru’s vast wealth although her own innate genius and natural aptitude for high finance have multiplied her wealth still further.

Sumuru is young and beautiful, and she has been young and beautiful for a very long time.  Exactly how long no-one can say, and how she has remained young and beautiful is one of her mysteries. She is more than merely beautiful though. The fatal fascination she exerts over men is a combination of beauty, intelligence and inaccessibility. Every man wants Sumuru but no man can have her. Her fascination may well be enhanced by other means. She has some great scientists in her organisation and the researches they pursue are in tune with her interests, and her interests centre on power and control. Hypnotism, drugs and other mind control techniques are at her finger tips.

Sumuru controls an international organisation which aims at nothing less than world domination. Sumuru wants a world of perfect beauty, a world from which ugliness has been eliminated. What that means for anyone who fails to conform to Sumuru’s ideal of beauty can well be imagined. Sumuru also wants a world from which violence has been banished and she doesn’t care how many people she has to kill to achieve that objective.

The achievement of Sumuru’s objectives will require her to gain control over men, and in order to achieve that she must first control women. She achieves this through a combination of kidnappings, drugs and brain-washing but she also achieves it through the appeal of her philosophy to misguided idealistic people who are looking for something to believe in.

Dick Carteret is not going to take on Sumuru alone. His most reliable ally will be an American private detective named Drake Roscoe. Drake Roscoe has a personal interest in this struggle, he himself having been at one time one of Sumuru’s victims. These two men are trying to rescue two women (one of them being Coral Denvers) from Sumuru’s clutches. Their task is made more difficult by the fact that none of Sumuru’s victims could be described as being entirely willing but but that the same time none could be described as entirely unwilling either. Dick Carteret and Drake Roscoe will also be drawn into another of Sumuru’s current projects, her attempt to gain the enormous wealth of a prominent and powerful member of Egyptian’s ruling regime.

Dr Fu Manchu may have been an arch-villain, utterly ruthless and a relentless enemy of our civilisation, but he was no mere hoodlum. His belief in the rightness of his cause and its inevitable success was absolutely sincere. And he was a man of honour. There was nothing cheap about Dr Fu Manchu. You can say much the same of Sumuru. Her methods are as ruthless as Fu Manchu’s and she possesses something of the same terror of the fanatic but her beliefs are equally sincere. Someone once said that no great villain was a villain in his own eyes. A really successful fictional villain has to believe that he is in the right, just as the most frightening real-life villains believe in their own hearts and in their own minds that they are on the side of the angels. Sumuru has this quality. She wants power but she believes that once she gains power she will make the world a better place. The most terrifying people on Earth are people who believe they are going to make the world a better place.

Sumuru is a villain on an epic scale and she is a very seductive villain. She may even start to seduce the reader until some action of hers serves as a reminder of the fanaticism, the callousness and the madness of her plans.

It is tempting to see Sumuru as a response on the author’s part to feminism but I very much doubt that this was the case. I think it is much more likely that Sumuru was a metaphor for communism. Her objectives sound wonderful in theory but in practice they can lead to nothing but oppression and misery. Everything she is doing she is doing for our own good, whether we like it or not. And her appeal is particularly strong to the young and idealistic. Her followers believe they are working for a perfect world and they cannot see that a perfect world built on murder and coercion cannot be a perfect world; it can only be a perfect hell.

Rohmer had no literary pretensions but his style was as energetic and as electrifying as his stories. It’s all breathless excitement. It’s a style that works exceptionally well for the types of stories that he wrote. He might not have been the kind of writer who will ever find favour with literary critics but within his own sphere he demonstrated considerable skill. It may well be that the writing of effective thrillers requires at least as much skill as the writing of the tedious angst-laden tomes so dear to the hearts of the readers of The Times Literary Supplement.

What really set Rohmer apart from other writers of this type of fiction was the scale of his villains. Even their virtues were on the grand scale, and their vices were correspondingly even more grandiose. Rohmer’s villains set their sights so high that you cannot help feeling a grudging admiration for them. They may be evil but they are extraordinary; they are giants and their enemies seem pygmies in comparison. There is something tragic about their failures but balanced against this is the knowledge of the immense consequences for evil should they ever succeed.

Most of all Rohmer’s work is always entertaining. Highly recommended.

The Bride of Fu Manchu

The Bride of Fu Manchu was the sixth of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels, and was published in 1933. It’s also in my opinion one of the best.

A mysterious epidemic is sweeping through southern France. Dr Petrie, who has something of a reputation for his knowledge of tropical medicine and exotic diseases, has been asked by the French government to lend assistance. What he finds is very disturbing indeed. The disease seems to be a form of plague, but with some unusual features. Equally disturbing is the presence of insects that appear to be hybrids never seen before, and he suspects they may be the carriers.

The young botanist Alan Sterling, an old friend of Petrie’s, is in southern France recuperating from a bout of blackwater fever picked up in the Amazon Basin. Sterling (who is the narrator of the book) earns his living as an orchid hunter, an occupation that takes him to many strange places and exposes him to many deadly risks. Danger has been his constant companion and his courage will serve him well in the adventure to come. Sterling has noticed things as well - plants that just don’t look right.

Sterling has already had an unusual encounter of a different kind, with a beautiful and exotic young woman named Fleurette on the beach at Ste Claire de la Roche. She appears to be the mistress of the mysterious and wealthy Mahdi Bey, but Sterling finds it difficult to believe that such a vision of loveliness, and such a charming young woman, could live her life in such a sordid manner. Fleurette will later have a major and very unexpected role to play in this story.

The thought that Dr Fu Manchu may be the guiding hand behind the strange epidemic has certainly crossed Dr Petrie’s mind. Dr Petrie believes he is on the verge of finding a cure when he is suddenly struck down by this plague-like illness.

Sterling will soon have confirmation of Fu Manchu’s involvement when Dr Petrie’s old friend (and Fu Manchu’s great nemesis) Sir Denis Nayland Smith arrives on the scene, but has Sir Denis arrived too late to save Petrie? And why does Nayland Smith seem to know something about Fleurette, something that disturbs him?

Sterling will be drawn into the battle to defeat yet another vast conspiracy of the Si-Fan, and will find himself facing not only Dr Fu Manchu, but also Fu Manchu’s daughter Fah Lo Suee (a woman who is as formidable and terrifying in her own way as Fu Manchu himself). But what exactly is Fah Lo Suee’s agenda?

If you enjoy tales of sinister diabolical criminal masterminds (and surely every right-thinking person does enjoy such stories) then The Bride of Fu Manchu delivers the goods. Dr Fu Manchu is one of the great fictional villains, as evil and dangerous as Sherlock Holmes’ great nemesis Professor Moriarty but much more colourful. Fu Manchu is a complex character, an implacable enemy but a man with a strong sense of honour. If Fu Manchu gives you his word about something then he will keep it, and will honour not just the letter of his promise but its spirit as well. He is a villain, but he is also a gentleman.

Fu Manchu is no mere cut-throat. He is a man who believes in things. The things in which he believes might make him a dangerous menace to western civilisation but it can never be doubted that his beliefs are sincere. He is, in his fashion, a great man.

This is a thrilling adventure yarn. I have no hesitation in warmly recommending it.

Sax Rohmer's The Dream Detective

Psychic or occult detective stories enjoyed a considerable vogue towards the end of the 19th century and for the first quarter of the 20th. The best-known are William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the ghost finder and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence stories. There were also the Flaxman Low stories of Hesketh V. Prichard (1876-1922) and Kate O'Brien Prichard. And there was also Sax Rohmer’s The Dream Detective.

Published in 1925, The Dream Detective recounts ten cases in the career of Moris Klaw. Klaw is pretty much what you’d expect an occult investigator to be - a rather shabby and oddly dressed old man, tall and stooped and with a bald head, and with a prodigious knowledge of the occult.

There is a fascinating difference though that sets these stories apart from the psychic detective stories of other writers. In most cases the psychic detective investigates supernatural happenings (or happenings assumed to be supernatural) using the methods of science (albeit very unconventional science of an occult nature). But Moris Klaw’s cases are essentially straightforward if unusual crimes without any overt supernatural elements, but he investigates them by methods that are most certainly occult.

Moris Klaw has come up with several singular theories of crime. The first is that very powerful emotions, such as those experienced by both a murderer and his victim, are imprinted on their surroundings where they can be recovered. Klaw does this by sleeping at the crime scene. In his sleep he receives a kind of mental photograph of the crime (hence the use of the term dream detective as the title of this collection). Klaw believes that thoughts have an almost physical existence, an idea that finds its fullest expression in the best story in the collection, The Case of the Veil of Isis.

His second theory is the Cycle of Crime. Certain objects, especially historical relics, are continually involved in a series of crimes often over the course of many centuries. To some extent this can be true of houses as well. As Moris Klaw points out in The Case of the Haunting of Grange, a haunted house is not haunted by one ghost over the course of many generations but rather by a new ghost in each generation, but the manifestations will always follow the same pattern. It’s not so much that the house is haunted by a ghost as the house itself possesses some quality that produces ghostly manifestations. In some cases this may be as a result of an atrocious crime or the career of a notorious scoundrel who lived in the house at one time.

Moris Klaw has an assistant - his beautiful and rather glamorous daughter Isis Klaw. She is the keeper of his occult library and her knowledge of such matters comes close to equalling that of her father. He often works with Inspector Grimsby of Scotland Yard. Grimsby had been a sceptic but after the affair in the Menzies Museum he is convinced that Moris Klaw is not merely genuine - he recognises that in any crime that has odd or unusual elements to it Klaw’s help is absolutely essential to him. Grimsby is young, talented and ambitious but most importantly he has a knack for working with other people.

Many of the cases involve archaeological artifacts and several are set in museums or involve collectors of artistic or archaeological objects. The Tragedies in the Greek Room are caused by the famous Athenean Harp, the most valuable item in the Menzies Museum. The Case of the Headless Mummies revolves around both mummies and the legendary Egyptian Book of the Lamps. The Case of the Potsherd of Anubis (one the best stories here) is about an ancient vase which is believed to have the power to summon great powers, an object sought by at least three different parties all with their own motives.

There is also, in The Case of the Case of the Crusader’s Axe, a battle-axe with a bloody history.

In The Case of the Blue Rajah the object is a fabulous diamond with a notorious history. In The Case of the Ivory Statue (another of the standout stories) it’s a modern work of art, but it is a statue of an ancient Egyptian dancer.

Sax Rohmer is best remembered for his Fu Manchu novels but he wrote in various genres, always entertainingly. The Dream Detective is a superb combination of crime and the occult, thoroughly enjoyable and original and is highly recommended.

Sax Rohmer’s The Fire Goddess

The Fire Goddess (published in Britain as Virgin in Flames) was the third of Sax Rohmer’s five Sumuru novels published between 1950 and 1956. Rohmer is best known for his Fu Manchu novels but his output was quite varied and included some excellent gothic horror tales.

Sumuru is in some ways a female version of Dr Fu Manchu. She’s also a diabolical criminal mastermind and an evil genius but her aims are rather different. Her objective is a world run by women, a world in which ugliness and violence will be abolished. Like all idealists she is prepared to use force to achieve her objectives.

Sumuru is more subtle than most however. She prefers to use brainwashing and sexual manipulation rather than overt violence. She has an army of women at her disposal, all of them beautiful.

She has married several times, always to extremely rich men. Each marriage has increased her wealth, and each husband has been ruthlessly discarded. Her enormous wealth has allowed her to build a vast criminal empire, the Order of our Lady. She has attracted the attention of various police forces as well as the FBI but no-one has ever succeeded in bringing any charges against her.

Her latest base of operations is in Jamaica, in a remote valley. Others have plans for this valley - the government hopes to construct a dam while a large mining company is anxious to explore the region’s rich bauxite deposits. Sumuru is determined to put a stop to any such interference in her domain.

Sumuru has problems within her organisation. One of her chief lieutenants, Sister Melisande, has ambitions of her own and there may be another traitor as well. And there is a Scotland Yard inspector making a nuisance of himself. Sumuru’s Jamaican operations involve voodoo and her followers on the island must undergo a trial by fire before being admitted to full membership of the Order of our Lady. Such a ceremony was unfortunately witnessed by an outsider who had to be eliminated and this was the event that attracted the notice of Scotland Yard. There’s also a young mining engineer, Lance Harkness, sent by his company to make a preliminary investigation of the bauxite deposits, and this may prove to be tiresome. One of Sumuru’s women is given the task of neutralising this threat. This does not necessarily entail murder - Sumuru prefers to recruit possibly useful people into her organisation rather than killing them and sex is usually an effective way to lure them in.

The style of the Sumuru books is very similar that of his Fu Manchu books - delightfully overheated and pulpy - and they’re just as much fun. The main difference is that Sumuru uses sex a lot more to further her plans for world domination.

A very enjoyable slice of vintage pulp fiction, highly recommended.

Brood of the Witch-Queen

Sax Rohmer gained his greatest fame as the author of the Fu Manchu books but he wrote countless other pulp novels. All of which are great fun, although all are politically incorrect in one way or another. Brood of the Witch-Queen combines the breathless overheated excitement and adventure and the diabolical criminal masterminds of the Fu Manchu and Sumuru novels with all manner of fiendish occult wickedness.

Robert Cairn is a terribly brave and very noble young man, the kind of Englishman who built the Empire. Or at least he’s the kind of Englishman Sax Rohmer liked to imagine as an Empire-builder, Rohmer being very much in favour of the Empire. He finds himself involved in an epic life or death struggle with a sinister young man, a fellow medical student named Antony Ferrara. Ferrara is the adopted son of Sir Michael Ferrara, an eminent Egyptologist and a close friend and colleague of Robert Cairns’ father (a celebrated doctor who dabbles in Egyptology). Antony Ferrara doesn’t share Robert’s manly interests, and he’s very popular with women, so he’s already regarded with deep suspicion.

But he isn’t just unmanly, he’s an unnatural fiend who pursues forbidden knowledge. And he has designs on his father’s daughter, the pretty heiress Myra. Robert Cairns is also in love with Myra, although of course in his case it’s a healthy and manly sort of love. Slowly but surely Robert and his father realise they’re dealing with unimaginable evil, with vampires, black magic and occult powers that have lain dormant since the days of Ancient Egypt.

Originally published in 1918, it’s all very silly and outrageous, and yet it’s also wonderfully entertaining. It’s very very pulpy, it’s campy and it’s trashy, but it’s also fast-paced, clever, ingeniously contrived and thoroughly enjoyable (assuming of course that you like pulpy trashy fun yarns of adventure and supernatural horror). The idea of using photography for occult purposes is rather cute as well.

Sax Rohmer’s The Mask of Fu Manchu

The Mask of Fu Manchu, published in 1932, was the sixth of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. This time the threat to civilisation comes from an heretical Islamic sect.

Sir Lionel Barton, the eminent but rather fiery archaeologist, has discovered the tomb of El Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet. Having retrieved the precious relics buried there, the Sword of God, the golden mask and the golden sheets inscribed with the New Koran, Barton blows up the tomb. This might seem like an odd thing for an archaeologist to do but it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect Sir Lionel Barton to do.

El Mokanna had been the leader of a sect of Islamic heretics, a sect that still has its devotees - and they take the fireball in the desert caused by the explosion as a sign. It awakens ancient longings and resentments and the potential is there for an uprising on an even larger scale that than of the Mahdi in the Sudan in the 1880s (which led to the death of General Gordon in the defence of Khartoum in 1885).

Dr Fu Manchu sees an opportunity here, an opportunity to advance his own interests. Anything that is likely to cause problems for the European powers is welcome news to Fu Manchu. He intends to manipulate the rising, but first he will need to get hold of those precious relics. It’s up to Sir Denis Nayland Smith to prevent this from happening.

This is a typical Fu Manchu novel. In other words it’s enormous fun.

One of the things that makes Fu Manchu such a memorable character is that he is not a simplistic villain. Rohmer’s characters always describe him with a mixture of fear and admiration and it’s reasonable to assume that this reflects Rohmer’s own views of his famous creation. On one occasion the narrator Greville (one of Sir Lionel Barton’s assistants) describes him as being the most evil but also the most honourable man he has ever encountered. Fu Manchu’s word is his bond.

This particular novel is even more sympathetic to Fu Manchu than the earlier books. He demonstrates not just his habitual sense of fair play but also displays something close to affection to Greville, sending him rare and valuable presents on the occasion of his wedding.

There is a sense in which Fu Manchu is being depicted as a worthy adversary. He is ruthless certainly, and implacably hostile to European colonial power, but he is also a gentleman. He knows the rules of the game, and he knows that certain things are just not cricket. He will kill to achieve his aims, but he will never kill without a reason, and never for such a base motive as mere revenge. If his plans are foiled that’s part of the game.

Fu Manchu’s daughter Fah Lo Suee plays an important role in this novel, and she’s an ambiguous character as well. She is motivated more by lust than the pursuit of power but the Fah Lo Suee of the novel is rather less evil, and less depraved, than the Fah Lo Suee so memorably played by Myrna Loy in the 1932 movie. She is ruthless and devious, no question about that, but she’s not a monster.

To some extent this reflects the fact that the book is a product of a different world from our own, a better world, where even diabolical criminal masterminds are constrained by matters of basic decency and good sportsmanship.

While the Fu Manchu books are often cited (especially in these days of all-pervasive and draconian political correctness) as being representative of the worst kinds of jingoism and racism I have to say that I strongly disagree. While Rohmer certainly believed in the likelihood of a power struggle between East and West I’ve personally seen no evidence in his books that he regarded Asians as morally or intellectually inferior to Europeans. On the contrary The Mask of Fu Manchu contrasts the scrupulous honesty of Dr Fu Manchu with the dishonourable conduct of Sir Lionel Barton, and as always Fu Manchu turns out to be at least the intellectual equal of his opponents. We have dangerously widened our definition of racism so that any suggestion of the possibility of cultural conflicts is now seen, quite wrongly, as racist.

If you’ve never sampled the delights of the Fu Manchu novels I would urge you to read them in the correct sequence, starting with The Mystery of Fu Manchu (published in the US as The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu ). There is immense enjoyment to be found in the pages of these books.

Sax Rohmer’s The Slaves of Sumuru

The Slaves of Sumuru, originally published in 1951, is the second of Sax Rohmer’s delightfully entertaining pulpy crime/adventure novel featuring the beautiful mysterious female criminal mastermind Sumuru.

Sumuru and her organisation are dedicated to the elimination of ugliness and violence from the world. Their dream is a world of beauty, run by beautiful women. Their methods are ingenious and ruthless, but mostly non-violent. In this second instalment Sumuru, referred to by her followers in terms of awe as Our Lady, has switched the focus of her activities from Europe to New York. From her headquarters in one of New York’s tallest skyscrapers (a headquarters fitted out like an eastern palace, complete with a swimming pool for her pet barracuda) Sumuru is recruiting wealthy American women to assist in her plans to extend her private empire. It’s up to Drake Roscoe, square-jawed American secret service operative, and his friend McKeigh, an English newspaper reporter, to thwart her plans.

What makes the Sumuru novels interesting is Rohmer’s fairly sympathetic portrayal of Sumuru. She gets to explain her philosophy, and her contention that a world run by men has been a world of endless horror, violence, corruption and ugliness is hard to refute! Not only is she not especially evil, she’s also clearly far more intelligent than her adversaries. Rohmer’s admiration for Sumuru is obvious. She may be, in theory, the villain, but she’s a remarkably attractive villain.

Rohmer’s style is outrageously pulpy, but it’s enormous fun. The Sumuru novels are somewhat unusual and wildly entertaining pulp fiction, and I’m thoroughly enjoying them.

Sax Rohmer’s The Sins of Sumuru

Sax Rohmer is best-known as the creator of Fu Manchu, but he also wrote a series of pot-boilers about another diabolical criminal mastermind, Sumuru. Sumuru is an even more outlandish villain than Fu Manchu, which makes The Sins of Sumuru even more fun! Sumuru is a glamorous, beautiful but sinister female diabolical criminal mastermind.

Rohmer’s work is interesting for what it tells us about the fears of its time (and perhaps about the prejudices of our own age). The Fu Manchu stories explore the anxiety that empire brings with it, the ever-present fear that empires on which the sun never sets may not be eternal after all, and that the culture that is dominant today may not be dominant tomorrow. Rohmer was not a mere racist. Fu Manchu was a frightening antagonist because he was educated, brilliant, imaginative and possessed a code of honour. These stories expressed not so much a fear of an inferior culture as the fear of a culture that might turn out to be superior.

The Sumuru tales deal with anxiety about women. The so-called New Woman of the 1890s caused a great deal of worry. The role of women was clearly changing, but it was not clear where that change was going to lead. And again Rohmer does not paint women as inferior and irrational, but like Fu Manchu he portrays them as representing a differing world-view that might well win out in the end. And Sumuru, like Fu Manchu, is both ruthless and brilliant. There is certainly admiration mixed in with the paranoia. Sumuru is threatening because she is more intelligent than her enemies, and because she has a vision.She knows exactly what it is that she wants to achieve.

Sumuru’s machinations go beyond mere crime. She intends to create a New World Order, based on the elimination of war, greed and ugliness. This will be a world order dominated by women. Beautiful women. There will be a place for men, but their role will be strictly subordinate.

A conspiracy to abolish war and greed is obviously an appalling threat to civilisation, so clearly she must be stopped. It’s up to American journalist Mark Donovan and Dr Steel Maitland, one-time naval surgeon and now a senior operative of the British government’s most secret intelligence service, to prevent this woman from destroying the very foundations of our civilisation. Donovan must also save the woman he loves from the clutches of Sumuru. She has been recruited as part of Sumuru’s secret army.

Sumuru, part from being a criminal genius, is also a master (well, mistress) of disguise. In fact no-one knows what she really looks like, so she could be anyone! It’s all terribly and breathlessly exciting! With lots of exclamation points! It was originally published under the even more gloriously pulpy title of Nude in Mink. Silly fun, but definitely great fun.

Sax Rohmer's The Daughter of Fu Manchu

The Daughter of Fu Manchu, published in 1931, was the fifth of Sax Rohmer’s novels featuring the fiendish but brilliant Dr Fu Manchu.

Fu Manchu was one of the first diabolical criminal masterminds in fiction, and remains one of the most interesting of the breed. While the books have often been accused of racism Fu Manchu is in fact a rather complex character. It’s made clear that he is a man of honour, a man of his word. And on some occasions he even finds himself on the same side as his arch-nemesis Nayland Smith. It’s also made clear that he is a man of vast intellectual gifts.

At the beginning of The Daughter of Fu Manchu it is assumed that Dr Fu Manchu himself is dead, although there are those who have their doubts as to whether such a man could really have ben killed. Strange events are unfolding in the Egyptian desert at an archaeological site. The leader of the expedition, Sir Lionel Barton, has died mysteriously but his assistant Greville (who is the narrator of the story) receives a message indication that perhaps Sir Lionel is not really dead.

Greville has confided in Dr Petrie, who sees uncanny similarities to earlier cases in which Dr Fu Manchu was involved. But surely he can’t still be alive? Dr Petrie can’t help wishing he could talk to his old friend Sir Denis Nayland Smith, a man who knows more about Fu Manchu than any man alive and who has been responsible for foiling several of his fiendish schemes. But no-one seems to know where Nayland Smith is.

Of course, as the title indicates, our heroes soon find themselves engaged in a battle of wits with the Lady Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu. She is almost as brilliant as her father, and every bit as dangerous and ruthless.

There are corpses that are not really dead, ransacked tombs, exotic poisons, vast conspiracies and ancient secret societies as well as a variety of fanatical religious assassins. Rohmer’s style is pulpy and breathless! With lots of exclamation points! But he knows how to tell an exciting story.

And the stories have both a fascinating villain and a colourful hero who is just as much of a larer-than-life figure as the villain.

SaxRohmer (1883-1959) wrote many books aside from the Fu Manchu books, including some rather good horror, and also the Sumuru series (a kind of female version of Fu Manchu). But it’s the Fu Manchu novels for which he is remembered. They’re great fun if you can accept their lack of political correctness (and that’s something you have to do for most of the pulp and popular genre fiction of the first half of the 20th century).