Sax Rohmer
1) Bat Wing
Toward the hour of six on a hot summer's evening Mr. Paul Harley was seated in his private office in Chancery Lane reading through a number of letters which Innes, his secretary, had placed before him for signature. Only one more remained to be passed, but it was a long, confidential report upon a certain matter, which Harley had prepared for His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. He glanced with a sigh of weariness
...Two years after the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu brought Britain to the brink of destruction, the reverend J. D. Eltham anxiously awaits his return. The devil doctor is presumed dead, but Eltham is an old China hand, rumored to have brought about the Boxer uprisings, and he knows that cheating death might just be the least of Fu-Manchu's accomplishments. When the reverend disappears,...
In the Burmese rainforest, an arrow steeped in the venom of the hamadryad snake, the deadliest reptile of the East, strikes colonial police commissioner Nayland Smith. His only hope is to immediately cauterize the wound using a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. For three delirious days, he lies on the forest floor, too weak to move. When the fever finally breaks,...
THE SHADOW OF A COWL
Keppel Stuart, M.D., F. R. S., awoke with a start and discovered himself to be bathed in cold perspiration. The moonlight shone in at his window, but did not touch the bed, therefore his awakening could not be due to this cause. He lay for some time listening for any unfamiliar noise which might account for the sudden disturbance of his usually sound slumbers. In the house below nothing stirred. His
...When Dr. Petrie saw a bullet enter the skull of the fiendish mastermind Fu-Manchu, he assumed England had nothing more to fear from the evil genius. But Nayland Smith knows that whatever became of the devil doctor, the sinister organization he served will go on trying to conquer the world.
Sir Gregory Hale, erstwhile attaché to the British Embassy in Peking,...
A society woman’s mysterious death sets off a twisting murder investigation in this 1915 crime novel featuring Inspector Dunbar and Gaston Max.
Popular novelist Henry Leroux is working late into the night when a woman in grave distress arrives at his door. Wearing little beneath her fur coat and clearly in need of medical attention, the woman dies before she can explain why she has sought Leroux out.
It is a baffling investigation...7) Fire-Tongue
A London detective is drawn into the web of a deadly cult in this mystery novel by the author of Bat Wing and the Fu Manchu novels.
Private investigator Paul Harvey is no stranger to the perils of the Far East, but he is about to encounter a force more deadly than any he has known before. Harvey is visited in his London office by Sir Charles Abingdon, a man he once met years ago in India. Sir Charles believes his life is in
...8) Dope
A detective must navigate London’s seedy opium dens after a troubled socialite disappears in this 1919 mystery novel.
Alderman Monte Irvin is favored by many to become London’s next Lord Mayor. So why would he have his wife followed by private detectives? Rita Irvin has been exhibiting distressing behavior, and when she’s seen with a gentleman entering the home of an enigmatic perfume dealer, Monte fears his worst
...A modern-day Robin Hood outsmarts London’s elite in this 1925 crime novel by the author of the Fu Manchu novels.
Jewish criminal mastermind Séverac Bablon is on a mission to combat the negative stereotypes of his people by blackmailing wealthy Jews into giving to charity. Like a modern-day Robin Hood, he steals in the name of the poor and outcast, inspiring philanthropy with the barrel of a gun.
As the rich go to greater...Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings, mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead, where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan,
...If you're in the mood for a collection of engaging and well-wrought detective and mystery stories with a stout dose of local color thrown in, Tales of Chinatown from British author Sax Rohmer, the creator of the Fu Manchu series, will definitely fit the bill. These tales are largely set in and around London's Chinatown, and each mystery exposes a different element of the famed enclave's seedy underbelly.
A London journalist becomes ensnared in a murder investigation full of danger, twists, and Egyptian gods in this 1920 mystery novel.
It was a windy night when journalist Jack Addison accompanied a local constable on a routine call. But what he encountered that evening was far from normal and could not be explained away by the gale. A shadowy figure with glowing green cat eyes regarded him from the darkness. Yet the footprints left
...Honored with a Victoria Cross and a Distinguished Service Order, Capt. Bernard O’Hagan prizes valor above all. A man of quick wit and short temper—he wastes no time challenging any offense—and backing up those challenges with his legendary skills as a fighter. Luckily for the good people...
16) Grey Face
A London detective pieces together a baffling series of crimes as an ominous grey face terrorizes the city in this hauntingly suspenseful mystery.
As a private investigator, Douglas Carey has solved his share of mysteries, but none so distressing or intimate as the one he is tasked with now. Having discovered a connection between a series of seemingly unrelated crimes—Carey’s report promptly goes missing—along with
...The most brilliant criminal the world has ever seen, Fu-Manchu is an expert polyglot and master chemist, adept in the manipulation of the rarest and deadliest poisons. An agent of a secret society bent on controlling the world, his mere gaze is enough to dull the sharpest minds of Great Britain. It is up to police...
The night's stillness is broken as Dr. Petrie rushes out to care for a dying patient, and the subtle machinations of villainy begin their work, and the nefarious Dr. Fu-Manchu again rears his insidious head in London.
Arthur Henry Ward (Sax Rohmer) is best known for creating the criminal mastermind Dr. Fu-Manchu. The Wire Jacket contains the first three chapters of the novel The Return of Fu-Manchu, and can be read as a standalone
...I was not the only passenger aboard the S.S. Mandalay who perceived the disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whence proceed. A goodly number of passengers were joining the ship at Port Said. I was lounging against the rail, pipe in mouth, lazily wondering, with a large vagueness.
What a heterogeneous rabble it was!—a brightly coloured rabble, but the colours all were dirty, like the town and the canal. Only the sky was
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